Losing Grace
by quiet liban
Summary: Gracie Bismarck always knew that her relationship with her soulmate Joseph Hannah wouldn't be easy but she never expected Harriet Miller, an ordinary human girl to get in her way.
1. Chapter I: Storm Clouds

TITLE: Green  
  
DISCLAIMER: Nightworld concepts belong to LJ Smith. Characters belong to me...ask if in the unlikely event that any take your fancy and you want to use them  
  
SUMMARY: "...Joseph would never use her like he had used other girls. He had never fed from her and never would unless she let him. Harri's name entered her mind unbidden; Harri was with her soulmate right now. Harri who's innocent smile made Gracie want to slash the girl's throat with a nice sharp and pointy kitchen knife...." Gracie Bismarck always knew that her relationship with her soulmate Joseph Hannah wouldn't be easy, but she never expected so many humans to get in her way.  
  
CHAPTER 1  
  
The rain poured over the oval while the dark clouds swirled above. Gracie Bismarck watched them. She was alone, and the thunder cracked. The day that had started out so brightly was shunned. The sun blocked by the heavy darkness of the sky and the blueness dissolved into grey.  
  
The tumultuous sky matched her grey eyes and her grey heart. Gracie was afraid. Shivers ran down her spine. Tiny pricks that were the physical symbol of her fear, Joseph was moving away. Her sigh was a long drawn out breath and she turned back to face the school again. She turned back to face her friends. She turned back to face Joseph.  
  
Each step she took was filled with lead. She couldn't help seeing what was between them. Someone would have to be a special sort of blind to see not to see the closeness arising between her friend and her soulmate.  
  
It's what comes when you find your soulmate at such a young age, Gracie thought. Forever is too long. Seventeen year olds are not meant to find true love.  
  
A salty tear welled in Gracie's eye. Finding Joseph was the best thing to happen in her life, but the knowledge that Harri was falling for him stung. He was hers.  
  
Hers forever.  
  
Gracie wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. She would not cry over this. Joseph was destined for her. That's why their minds fizzled when they touched and they did not need words to understand each other. They fitted. Two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that melded together to form a bigger picture. Harriet Miller was human; she shouldn't be able to lull Joseph away from her. Gracie walked slowly through the rain, not caring if she became soaked. If another witch had swayed Joseph away, Gracie would have said magic was responsible. But how could a human girl over ride the old powers?  
  
Gracie took her next step into Ari Lindsay. Golden eyes sparkled, the brightness of the boy angered Gracie who wanted to inflict the havoc she was feeling on to the world. The smile he graced her with was dazzling. The shape shifter boy was indeed handsome, but he wasn't her Joseph. He wasn't the other half of her. He dragged her into shelter, and Gracie wanted to obstinately step back into the storm again.  
  
"Are you okay?" Ari had noticed her red eyes. Gracie wanted to scream. She knew that her eyes were puffy. She hoped hay fever would be a plausible excuse. Gracie forced a smile on to her blank face.  
  
"Just hay fever," Ari gave her an unbelieving look, but choose not to argue. Her fellow Daybreaker knew her too well.  
  
"I worry about you sometimes," Ari have a small chuckle. Gracie's anger flared again. What was he laughing at? Her unconvincing lie?  
  
"Don't," she pushed down her anger, "I'm big enough and ugly enough to worry about myself." The dazzling golden eyes studied her again, this time making her feel self-conscious. He was searching for something and Gracie hoped he wouldn't find it.  
  
"Yeah, guess you are," Ari's face shined again, "you know about the meeting on Sunday right?" Gracie nodded she knew what Ari was referring to. A Circle Daybreak was being held on Sunday night.  
  
Gracie nodded, "Joseph and I should be there."  
  
"Good, tell Hannah that he better get his arse there, or I will come after him with a nice heavy oak bat," threat was in good nature, but somehow Gracie believed that Ari would have no qualms in severely injuring her soulmate. "I will okay," Gracie let out a small laugh, and amazingly Ari let her continue her way through the rain to the year twelve common room. Gracie burst in through the double doors, her uniform saturated to search for the table her friends were crowded around.  
  
She saw Joseph's ruddy mop of hair swing round, and a warm sensation enveloped her shivering body. His ice blue eyes sought out hers, and he smiled. Joseph Hannah was still hers. Harri would never have him. A muscular body slammed into hers, destroying the reassurance Gracie was enjoying from her soulmate. Gracie growled at the boy who had cornered her in a small alcove of lockers and let a long line of expletives flow, politely asking what the boy thought he was doing. Gracie looked angrily into eyes that she knew as well as her own.  
  
"All I wanted was your attention," her stepbrother shrugged, chocolate brown hair hanging down into his eyes. Gracie glared at the older boy.  
  
"You have it, now explain, because right now I am intensely pissed off with you."  
  
Peter Haywood smiled; this infuriated his stepsister more.  
  
"Tell me," Gracie said tersely.  
  
"I think you should stop seeing him," Peter said seriously, dramatically changing tones. Gracie stared. Did he mean what she thought he meant? "I don't trust him, Grace. I mean I know how he treats other chicks."  
  
Gracie sighed. She had been through this before, "Pete, as much as I don't appreciate your concern. I have listened to you warn me about Joseph before and I disagree with you."  
  
Peter looked at her dubiously. "Gracie you don't know what Hannah's done to his exes."  
  
Gracie couldn't take it anymore. She was stick of her stepbrother's resistance to her soulmate. He didn't understand. Joseph would never use her like he had used other girls. He had never fed from her and never would unless she let him. Harri's name entered her mind unbidden; Harri was with her soulmate right now. Harri who's innocent smile made Gracie want to slash the girl's throat with a nice sharp and pointy kitchen knife.  
  
Gracie glared at Peter, "I know you care, and that's what pisses me off more, but I know Joseph cares about me too. He wouldn't hurt me on purpose. I can't explain how I know this, and even if I could I know you wouldn't believe me."  
  
Peter tried hard not to show his amusement. Gracie's face was so earnest, still Peter was worried about his stepsister's relationship with Joseph Hannah. He didn't trust the vampire who until three months ago had not qualms about killing innocent teenage girls for a feed. Another witch would be much more suitable for his stepsister. Another witch wouldn't have such a bloody and uncertain past behind him. Joseph Hannah had a blackness surrounding him and it attracted girls like lights attracted moths.  
  
"I know why Jake married my mum," Peter referred to their parents. Peter was human and so was his mother Phyllis Haywood had married Jake Bismarck seven years ago. Seven years ago was when Peter had been enlightened to the world that his stepfather and sister had been born to. Peter was introduced to the nightworld at the age of eleven and he had formed a distrust of anything with fangs. He had figured that Joseph Hannah and Gracie were soulmates just like his mother and stepfather were, but he wanted to hear it from Gracie.  
  
"Then you should know why Joseph wouldn't hurt me," Gracie clenched her jaw. She just wanted to go to Joseph and prove to Harri that she couldn't have him.  
  
"Do you believe that will stop him? Do you think that you're enough for him?" Peter knew he should leave it but something about Gracie's grey eyes made him press on.  
  
Gracie's eyes turned to solid grey marble, and she glared. Peter stared back waiting for an answer he knew she wouldn't give. He dropped his eyes and Gracie made to shove past him. He let her. He knew that she wouldn't listen to him. Despite their differences they understood each other well.  
  
Gracie ignored her stepbrother's probing eyes. She didn't want to think about his questions, and she didn't even want to contemplate the answers she knew that would come. No, she didn't believe he would change overnight it had taken him this long to turn up to one Daybreak meeting. She felt the saltiness of tears well up again, this lunchtime as going too long.  
  
"Anyway, Maria's birthday is on Sunday..." Gracie approached the conversation being held by her group of friends.  
  
"Hey Gracie," Jacinta Smith greeted her. Gracie forced a melancholy smile and slid into the seat next to Joseph. A comforting arm crept around her waist and Gracie had to fight not to collapse into her soulmate's warmth.  
  
"What do you guys think?" Trinity Lloyd turned to the cluster of friends Gracie was with.  
  
"About what?" Joseph asked blankly, disinterest oozing off every word. His fingers danced on the small of Gracie back and she fought hard not to go off into the world that was all their own.  
  
"Ria's birthday," Harri supplied seamlessly, smiled with the happiness that had dissipated from Gracie's life. The brown haired girl looked directly in to Joseph's eyes almost challengingly.  
  
Gracie watched her soulmate be captivated by the girl she had known since primary school. "What about it?" Joseph voiced, his tones showing more interest now Harri was talking about the topic.  
  
Gracie waited for the arm around her waist drop but it stayed. "Going out to dinner on Sunday night for it," Harri smiled at him. Gracie felt her heart tighten; there was a Daybreak meeting in Sunday.  
  
"Hmmm, yeah that could be cool," Joseph leaned back into the chair. Harri still watched him, taking in his deep blue eyes and honey gold skin.  
  
"We've got that thing on Sunday," Gracie spoke up, she wasn't to let Harri talk her soulmate into going to a birthday dinner for some girl he hardly knew let alone liked.  
  
Joseph turned to her, "What thing?" Gracie's heart nearly melted then, he was so nonchalant. His blue eyes were so clear. The reminded her of springs she had visited as a child. She would gladly swim in them, if only he would promise not to betray her heart.  
  
"The thing with Ari, Rosie and Pete on Sunday," Gracie told her other half. She watched Joseph's face, waiting for remembrance to set in. The forgetful blankness stayed.  
  
"Yeah," Rosie Willow joined Gracie and Joseph's conversation. "It was organised weeks ago, Hannah, you said you would come." The other vampiric girl gave Joseph an expectant look.  
  
"Ari said he would come after you with a heavy oak baseball bat if you didn't turn up," Gracie half-pleaded with him.  
  
"What are you talking about?" Harri interrupted them, her hazel eyes looking from Gracie to Joseph.  
  
"Apparently I have a previous engagement," Joseph glanced at his soulmate's demanding eyes, "Sorry Harri, we can't go."  
  
Harri bit her bottom lip, "That's not good enough."  
  
Gracie watched Harri silently, as the bell rung throughout the school. Joseph stayed where he was, as the girls moved away from the table and dispersed through the common room to their lockers.  
  
"You forgot," Gracie addressed her soulmate contemptuously. The blue eye boy shrugged. Anger spread throughout Gracie's body. "Joseph you promised."  
  
"Did I?" Joseph asked apparently unconcerned.  
  
Gracie tried to reach him through the link that they shared but found he had shut it off. Frustration melded with her anger. "Why do you do that? You know it rebounds later."  
  
"Because I can."  
  
Gracie glared at him, it was so easy to say that you were supposed to love you soulmate unconditionally, but much harder in practice. Absently Gracie wondered how her Dad and Phyllis did it.  
  
"I don't want to deal with you right now," Gracie wanted to stand up and storm off, but Joseph held her down by her forearms ignoring the sparks that flew freely. Gracie wanted to slap him.  
  
"I love you," the words offered little comfort to Gracie then. The way Harri had gained her soulmates attention so easily was still in her mind.  
  
"That's great really. Do you know I have to keep defending you from Pete? He doesn't trust you. He doesn't believe that you'll reform. I know what you used to be and I don't blame you. That's how you were raised," Gracie sighed. Ignoring how her eyes were glistening with tears. "But I know that you can change, but only you can change you."  
  
Joseph studied his crying soulmate. He couldn't change he knew that. He didn't know why he kept lying to this girl that was inscrutably connected to him. He didn't understand why he was lying to himself.  
  
"You know what Gracie?" Joseph wiped the tears away from his soulmates cheeks, kissing her forehead softly.  
  
Gracie blinked, not trusting her self to speak or look at her soulmate.  
  
"Maybe you shouldn't defend me," he whispered, before leaving her to sit by herself at the table. 


	2. Chapter II: Can't Say How I Feel

TITLE: Green  
  
DISCLAIMER: Nightworld concepts belong to LJ Smith. Characters belong to me...ask if in the unlikely event that any take your fancy and you want to use them  
  
SUMMARY: "...Joseph would never use her like he had used other girls. He had never fed from her and never would unless she let him. Harri's name entered her mind unbidden; Harri was with her soulmate right now. Harri who's innocent smile made Gracie want to slash the girl's throat with a nice sharp and pointy kitchen knife...." Gracie Bismarck always knew that her relationship with her soulmate Joseph Hannah wouldn't be easy, but she never expected so many humans to get in her way.  
  
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ann: Hey. Thanks for your review...it made me so excited...I love to know when people read my work and I love it even better when they like it....hope you enjoy the next bit!  
  
Ganymade: Thanks for reviewing....it gave me some motivation for finishing this bit off. Still it's a bit short, but the next bit should be longer... and the last bit in Him and Her is the epilogue it was meant to show that she had become a vampire and that they were together...it's only mean to be short! Thanks again for taking the time not only to read my stories but to review it too...enjoy the next chappie!  
  
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GREEN: CHAPTER II  
  
Harriet Miller walked to her class, ignoring the people who smiled at her and nodded. She was not happy. Something in her burned at the thought of Joseph Hannah and Gracie Bismarck together, she didn't understand it. She was supposed to be happy at them being together. Harri frowned as she walked into her maths class. The teacher frowned back at her.  
  
Harri was late. Again.  
  
She took her seat by the window. Storm clouds blocked the sun this depressed her more. She was disappointed that Hannah wouldn't come to Maria Stapleton's birthday dinner. Harri had been sure that he would have come if it hadn't been for Rosie and his girlfriend having that 'thing.'  
  
Harri glared at the whiteboard, the teacher was scribbling page numbers and Harri looked at her textbook. She refrained from snorting. She was not in the mood for numbers.  
  
~*~  
  
Ari Lindsay watched Gracie Bismarck from across the room. The mahogany haired witch was pushing back tears again. He knew that her soulmate was the cause of her pain, but knew that he couldn't comfort her. She didn't want any one to know that she was hurting, but he could see.  
  
He wanted to go to her, but she would never accept him. He was an outsider to her pain, an acquaintance that she barely knew. He cared more than he could comprehend. He had watched her since she had moved to the district. He knew how she moved, her tiny habits that made her uniquely her. The mannerisms that made her stand out in the crowd. Yes, Ari cared more than he knew he should.  
  
But he would never have that link with her. He would never know what she was feeling exactly when she was feeling it. Ari sighed, she was unattainable, something he could never have. Never he could never hold and comfort her. Ari diverted his eyes as she turned around; she carried a palette across the art room to where he was sitting. Her tears had dried, leaving puffy red stains.  
  
"Don't say it," her voice ordered, her grey eyes commanding him to choke his concern.  
  
"You know that I mean it," Ari replied, taking a brush from the jar next to the acrylics.  
  
"I don't need to start again Ari," at least she did not deny she had been crying.  
  
Ari remained silent, not sure what he could say without feeling stupid. Gracie moved around him gathering paints and moved over to where she had primed her canvas.  
  
His golden eyes were drawn to her and he couldn't look away he knew that he should concentrate on his painting, but he was mesmerised by her anguish. The way she moved sung delicately of her emotions.  
  
Ari breathed. "Can I do a portrait of you?" he was shocked by the question that had slipped out. Gracie's grey eyes looked at him and Ari swore that he was quaking at the presence of her gaze.  
  
"A portrait?" Gracie asked. Uncertainty etching her features, "why?"  
  
Ari didn't know what to say, "why not?"  
  
Thoughtfulness crept over her face. "Hmmm," Gracie looked at Ari again as if trying to find out what he would get out of doing a portrait of her. "I s'pose."  
  
The words of her assent made Ari's heart flutter. He smiled at her, and was given a smile of hers to keep forever. "Thanks," Ari turned back to his current project.  
  
~*~  
  
Joseph Hannah started his car. He could feel the sadness and rage of his soulmate at the back of his mind. It was hurting him.  
  
Her rage was burning, but it wasn't a purifying flame no, it was quite different. It was making him feel guilty. He liked the sinking lead feeling in his stomach less than he liked the twisting floating feeling that moved up his intestines when ever he laid eyes on the mahogany haired beauty that had chained his heart.  
  
Joseph Hannah was not designed for love.  
  
He pulled out of the student car park not caring who saw him speed off into the traffic. Joseph Hannah was not designed for school either. He needed to escape the link it was dragging him down. He knew that he would go back to her. He would always go to her. He did love her, but he couldn't accept it.  
  
All the promises he made would be broken. Joseph knew that, he knew that he couldn't deny the hunter within him. How Ari did amazed him. The eagle shifter was a fountain of compassion, but still he was a raptor. A predator.  
  
Joseph turned up the radio, hoping the music would take over his thoughts. Harriet Miller's face shimmered into his mind and he remembered how disappointment lined her face when it was revealed that he had to go a stupid Daybreaker meeting.  
  
The brunette was human, three months ago he would have given her what she wanted without a second thought, but now he was attached. Attached and feeling guilt.  
  
The emotion was new for him. So many emotions were new to him. He marvelled how people put up with them. They were tearing up his mind and his insides. Things were so much simpler before he had met Gracie.  
  
He pulled up into his drive way. He was home. Still not a place of refuge, the link haunted him everywhere. Itching at the back of his mind. She would always defend him. The knowledge hurt her as much as it amused him.  
  
Peter was right of course. Joseph knew that Gracie should listen to her stepbrother. Joseph would hurt her, he already was. Harriet Miller had incited fascination in him; she had ignored the unspoken law. The unspoken law that murmured that he was permanently unavailable to her. He knew that she had incited envy in his soulmate's mind.  
  
Harriet Miller had poisoned him and Gracie.  
  
~*~ 


	3. Chapter III: Tell Me

TITLE: Green  
  
DISCLAIMER: Nightworld concepts belong to LJ Smith. Characters belong to me...ask if in the unlikely event that any take your fancy and you want to use them  
  
SUMMARY: "...Joseph would never use her like he had used other girls. He had never fed from her and never would unless she let him. Harri's name entered her mind unbidden; Harri was with her soulmate right now. Harri who's innocent smile made Gracie want to slash the girl's throat with a nice sharp and pointy kitchen knife...." Gracie Bismarck always knew that her relationship with her soulmate Joseph Hannah wouldn't be easy, but she never expected so many humans to get in her way.  
  
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Coffee-Freak: I don't think that Harri is meant to be likable.... I mean she is after her friend's soulmate.... I'm glad you like Gracie though...it would be bad if my main character wasn't even the tiniest bit likable although I've read stories where I didn't like the main character at all but I just wanted to see what happened. I think it was The Devil Latch by Sonya Harnett. Kitten was freaky...ok I'm rambling. Thanks for reviewing and I hope you like the next bit  
  
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GREEN: CHAPTER II  
  
Harriet Miller wandered to her car, her back laden with a backpack full of textbooks. Rosie Willow walked next to her. She glanced around the student car park for a car she didn't really expect to be there. Joseph Hannah wasn't really the type to stick around school for a whole day.  
  
Her eyes fell on Joseph's girlfriend speaking to Ari Lindsay. She smiled at Ari who caught her eyes. Gracie Bismarck followed Ari's gaze and the expression on her face soured. Harriet felt guilt stab at her.  
  
She knew that she shouldn't be interested in Gracie's boy, but Joseph Hannah was way too interesting for her not to be. Rosie waved next to her and headed to where they were standing next to Ari's car.  
  
"Hey," Rosie greeted her friends. Harri tossed over the decision to follow her classmate but found she was following the leggy eighteen year-old.  
  
Ari smiled at Rosie but his expression diminished at seeing Harri. She smiled back at him, but his golden eyes lacked lustre as he turned to look at Gracie. Harri saw what surfaced when he looked at her rival.  
  
It was unmistakable, his warmth was brighter than the sun and Ari was glowing with emotion. Ari Lindsay was infatuated with Gracie Bismarck.  
  
Harriet had to choke the laughter that had risen to her throat. Ari gave her a quick glare but ignored her. Gracie made pleasant conversation before leaving them. Harri watched Gracie go, she could see the submissive way that she walked. Harri's blood became thicker as it pumped through her heart. Somehow Harri knew she was responsible for the way Gracie was moving, the way her smiles didn't reach her eyes. Guilt emulsified her blood and she felt a heaviness fall over her, greater than the weight of her school bag. It moved her from her position beside Rosie and Ari to her friend's side.  
  
Gracie glanced at her, the disgust in her grey eyes filled Harri with discomfort. Sorry formed on her lips, but it wasn't true. Harri wouldn't apologise to Gracie. She had done no wrong, still shame moved around her body.  
  
"How's Hannah?" the wrong question strayed from Harri's lips. Gracie's granite glare ploughed through Harri.  
  
"Fine," the words were ice.  
  
"Pete?" Harri inquired, hoping that asking about her stepbrother would melt the words spoken from Gracie's lips.  
  
"An annoying little bugger," Gracie replied. Her tone was still frosty.  
  
Harri grinned, "What about Phyllis?"  
  
Gracie rolled her eyes. "Incompetent."  
  
Harri laughed and surprisingly Gracie laughed with her. Forgiveness had not passed between them, but a truce had formed. The treaty would hold so long as Harri did not mention or go near Joseph Hannah. It was a treaty that Harri had no intention of upholding.  
  
"What about Ari?" Harri smiled knowingly at her friend. Gracie turned to face her.  
  
"What do you mean by that?" Gracie voice was tight. Laughter glinted in Harri's green eyes. Harri smiled, shaking her head. "Harri?"  
  
"Never mind," Harri laughed, Gracie's eyes filling with distrust again.  
  
"Tell me, Harri."  
  
"It's just my imagination," Harri laughed moving to her red Ford Laser. Gracie stood behind her car. Her grey eyes searching Harri's face; clouding over with confusion.  
  
"Whatever," Gracie walked to where her stepbrother was waiting. "See-ya tomorrow."  
  
"Bye," Harriet Miller fell in to the drivers seat, watching Gracie in the rear vision mirror. Her eyes drifted over to where Ari was still talking to Rosie.  
  
The golden boy glanced up suddenly and looked over to her car. Harri flinched as she found herself staring into those gold eyes.  
  
~*~  
  
Peter looked over at his stepsister as he pulled into their drive. Her expression was faded. Gracie was not the vibrant girl he knew. He also knew that Joseph Hannah was responsible for the way Gracie was behaving.  
  
"What did he do?" Peter risked being torn limb from limb.  
  
Gracie turned her tearstained eyes to her stepbrother. "Nothing, I told you he would never hurt me."  
  
Peter raised an eyebrow questioningly, not trusting what Gracie had to say. "You've been like this the whole day. If it wasn't Hannah, it was someone else." He was certain Gracie's soulmate was screwing her around. Couldn't she see that she didn't have to be with him?  
  
"Pete, lay off. It's none of your damn business," Gracie got out of the car, slamming shut the car door. "Goddess, Pete. You have no idea what it's like for me, to have everyone telling me that the guy I love is wrong for me. If he was wrong for me, why did the old powers put us together? Dammit Pete! Can you tell me why?" Gracie shouted at the chocolate haired boy, "Tell me why?"  
  
Peter's eyes grew wide at his stepsister's frustration. He didn't expect her to morph into an erupting volcano. Her grey eyes were wild with pent up stress. He saw how much damage Hanna had done to Gracie. He wanted to hurt Joseph Hannah. He wanted to show that boy just how much he was destroying the girl he supposedly loved. "Sorry, Gracie. I can't tell you why," Peter mumbled meekly as he followed her into the house.  
  
Gracie ignored her five-year-old half sister who had run up to greet her. Pete looked down at the little girl who had deep chocolate brown hair like him and hard grey eyes like her older sister.  
  
"Gracie angry," the younger girl stated, puzzlement fusing with her cuteness.  
  
"Yes, Lils. Gracie very angry," Peter agreed with his half sibling.  
  
~*~  
  
~Can you tell me why? ~ The shout echoed in his head. Joseph groaned. He did not want this. He had never asked for someone to care about. ~Tell me why? ~  
  
His hands went to his ears; he knew this would happen sooner later. He was just betting on later. The fury vibrated through the link. Mind to mind he knew exactly what she was feeling. Her heart was bleeding, and every tear that dripped down her cheek was blood. Every tear that dripped down her cheek trickled down his. His blue eyes cried oceans because she was.  
  
Joseph shut his eyes. Trying to reach for a barrier he knew he could put up, instead a hand betrayed him and he reached for the phone, emotion pouring through the link in a one-way torrent.  
  
The number he dialled was insignificant; he knew who he needed to speak to. He knew that they would yell and scream and he would drive over and they would be together crying tears that would separate them more.  
  
"Hello?" a male voice answered.  
  
Joseph choked back tears, forcing himself to speak calmly. "Hi, is Gracie there?"  
  
There was pause and it put him on edge. He needed to speak to Gracie, he had to hear her voice and tell her that it didn't matter. Tell her that he cared and that they would work it out, each time it was getting harder to lie and even harder to believe.  
  
"She doesn't want to speak to anyone at the moment. Can I take a message?" the man replied.  
  
"No, Mr Bismarck. It's Joseph...I need to talk to her. Tell her its Joseph," urgency crept into his voice. Tell her that it's her soulmate who loves her.  
  
"I'm sorry, Joseph. She said she didn't want to talk to anyone. She's had a trying day," the politeness of Gracie's father hurt him more. The man should understand. Why didn't he understand?  
  
"Mr Bismarck. I need to speak with her," he could feel every ounce of her misery, and was crying every one of her tears. Every thought that passed through her mind, he could read. But he couldn't contact her. She was too obsessed with her woe. Too enamoured with the despondency she had created in herself.  
  
"I'm sorry, but she won't answer her door. She doesn't want to talk with anyone," Mr Bismarck was firm, "Try later. I'll tell her you called."  
  
The dial tone filled his ears and he smashed the handset back into its cradle. He knew what would happen now. It happened every time he broke one of the promises she had extracted from him. He would go to her, and make more promises to break. Only to repeat the experiment over and over again, it was an endless cycle. He knew what would happen and he would do it. She was his soulmate, and she was the one the made him feel things. She made the world worthwhile.  
  
He locked his door mindlessly, heading to his car. Her thoughts getting dark, swirling into precarious whirlpools. Incidents bubbled to the surface, his actions throbbing through her mind and falling through into the link. Hazel eyes and brown hair filled his mind, and he knew what had triggered this.  
  
Harriet Miller.  
  
The girl that had captured something in him, Gracie knew this. It was eating away at her. It had caused this momentary grief. Joseph stared, glaring at the red lights glowing above him. He needed to get to Gracie now.  
  
Turns blurred as he sped down her street, stopping a few houses from hers.  
  
Joseph calmed himself, trying to stop the feelings Gracie was inserting in him. Trying to stop the emotions that were acid to his mind.  
  
He jogged softly and silently, using the abilities that came naturally to him. The light in her room, made him smile. The window was open.  
  
The air felt cold beneath his legs as he climbed up the trellis, ignoring the splinters that dug into his palm. They were nothing compared to what a stake could do.  
  
"Why wouldn't you answer the phone?" Joseph asked, going to his sobbing soulmate. She started and the mahogany haired girl pushed furiously at her tears.  
  
"Damn you Joseph," Gracie whispered.  
  
"I haven't done anything wrong," Joseph stated plainly. Watching her reaction, she was locked in her place. Bolt upright on her bed. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and feel her relax among his arms and against his chest. He wanted to look into her eyes that wouldn't be tearstained and puffy. He wanted the world to be perfect, but it wasn't and he would never be.  
  
"I can still feel it. You want her," Gracie told him, anger jumping around her vocals. Despise deep in her voice. "Goddess Joseph, I can feel it. I don't get it. Aren't I enough for you?"  
  
Joseph tried not to roll his eyes, "I do not lust after Harriet Miller."  
  
"Then why? Why do you think about her? She's human Joseph. I know what you used to do to girls like her," Gracie's voice wavered.  
  
Joseph went to the witch; she didn't flinch when he sat beside her. He took her hand and he felt her gasp as the link flew to life.  
  
She felt him in his mind, and he wondered what she saw.  
  
~I don't know, my sweet~  
  
He felt her fall against him and he held her close. Relishing the fleeting peace between them, it should always be like this he decided.  
  
~Then we wouldn't be people,~ Gracie commented from inside his psyche. Her thoughts brushed his mind like fingers being dragged through a still pond.  
  
~It's nice, here~ Joseph felt his eyes closing, and he lay down. Gracie curled beside him on the bed.  
  
~I don't trust you, ~ Gracie told him. Her honesty sparkled like a diamond and hit him twice as hard.  
  
Joseph breathed in. He already knew that, if she trusted him, she wouldn't be torturing herself with thoughts of Harriet Miller.  
  
~I realise that. I guess I have no reason to be offended. I'm not the most reliable soulmate, ~  
  
Gracie gave the mental equivalent of a sigh. ~Harri's after you, ~  
  
~Can we not talk about that? ~ Joseph backed away from the subject, he didn't want to the mar the situation.  
  
Joseph felt indignation rise up in her, and he wanted to quell it but he knew she would press the point. ~I'm with you, Gracie. I know it's hard sometimes. So many things to do with us are new to me~  
  
~ So you go after other girls? ~ Gracie accused. He felt her try and rise out of his mind.  
  
~I've never done that. So don't even go there. ~  
  
~What about Harri? Joseph don't lie to me~ her thoughts were pained. Every word stung Joseph's mind.  
  
~What about her? This isn't about her it's about us. ~  
  
"Don't avoid the question," Gracie sat up, slightly dazed but immediately angry at her soulmate.  
  
"There are a lot of things about Harri we could discuss, but I haven't done any thing wrong," Joseph defended himself verbally.  
  
Gracie's eyes were stone. She would not believe him. "Out!"  
  
Joseph fixed his ocean blue eyes on her, "No."  
  
"Why not?" she said angrily. Standing over him with her hand on hips. Joseph sat up reaching to pull her closer to him.  
  
"Because I don't want to leave you," he intertwined his fingers with hers, "I haven't betrayed you."  
  
Her grey eyes gave him no mercy; they plundered through his like a crazy hacksaw. She dug her nails into his skin, knowing that it wouldn't hurt him that much.  
  
"Haven't you?" her question reverberated through the link, and Joseph absorbed it, "You shouldn't make me feel like this. You shouldn't make me defend you from myself. Damn you Joseph, why did you have to turn up in my life?"  
  
"I don't know, but I'm here. I don't know how to make you happy Gracie. I only know that when you're like this. I feel it," Joseph felt tears creep to his eyes, "I don't want to feel anything Gracie. I don't want you to feel like I do."  
  
Joseph felt Gracie's grey eyes fall across him, and a reassuring hand slid to his shoulder. 


	4. Chapter IV: My Black Heart Bleeds For Yo...

TITLE: Green  
DISCLAIMER: Nightworld concepts belong to LJ Smith. Characters belong to me…ask if in the unlikely event that any take your fancy and you want to use them  
SUMMARY: "…Joseph would never use her like he had used other girls. He had never fed from her and never would unless she let him. Harri's name entered her mind unbidden; Harri was with her soulmate right now. Harri who's innocent smile made Gracie want to slash the girl's throat with a nice sharp and pointy kitchen knife…."

Gracie Bismarck always knew that her relationship with her soulmate Joseph Hannah wouldn't be easy, but she never expected so many humans to get in her way.

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Coffee-Freak: Yeah, Harriet's a bitch. Well she is. Glad you liked the last chapter…. I liked it too = P. Thanks for reviewing. It makes me so happy.

Ganymade: Thanks for reviewing…. I don't know if I want Joseph and Gracie together….he's hurting her so much. Bastard. Oh well at least he feels how much he's screwing her around.

Rayv: Hey, I'm writing more…. ::points down the screen:: I'm so glad that you like it so much that you made my story your hero…thanks for reviewing.

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CHAPTER IV

Ari stared blankly at the television screen. Pictures of scenes in far off countries flickered over it. The news depressed him, reality TV annoyed him and there weren't enough comedies. Rosie Willow moved into the lounge room with plate of vegemite saladas. The lamia girl had a weird obsession with the Australian delicacy. Ari screwed up his nose at the food.

"What?!" Rosie exclaimed at his expression.

"How can you eat that?" Ari asked amazed that she could stomach the vitamin B spread.

"I put it my mouth, chew and then swallow," Rosie replied sarcastically, following through her words with actions. "Mmmm, v e g e m i t e.''

Ari turned away, "Sicko."

Rosie snorted, changing the channel from the ABC news to _Home and Away_.

Ari rolled his eyes, "I swear girl, that you are deranged."

Rosie glared at him, deep green eyes boring into his golden eagle eyes. "What did I do now?"

Ari didn't deign to answer but waved to another Daybreaker entering the room.

"Boss wants to speak to you," the girl told him, plopping down on the couch beside Rosie.

Ari stared at the blonde, "Now?"

"Yes," the girl turned to look at Rosie. "Is he always this thick?"

Rosie looked at her associate and friend. "Thicker than the average brick wall."

Ari's eyes narrowed at the vampire. "I do not need you two to gang up on me okay?"

The two girls laughed, and Ari scowled. 

"You know Boss doesn't like to wait…she said that she wanted to see you _now_," the girl cast an amused grin at him.

"One of these days Belle I'll get you," Ari threatened the blonde.

Belle laughed, "Looking forward to it Ari."

Ari shook his head as he exited the rec room, and made his way through the maze of corridors that were the local Daybreak centre.

"What took you so long?" the middle aged woman behind a pine desk asked as Ari walked into her office.

"Belle decided that I was a source of entertainment," Ari slid into the leather chair in front of the brown-eyed woman's desk.

"Did she now? I have a favour to ask."

Ari surveyed the woman, she looked nervous. "What is it Boss?"

Her brown eyes flashed downwards, "I know about your feelings for Gracie Bismarck."

Ari tried not to look surprised, he knew it was obvious to everyone except Gracie. Still he didn't want anyone to know that he cared about her. It was precious to him. He didn't want it to change. "Oh," he replied, hoping he sounded carefree, knowing that he didn't.

The woman gave a small smile. He knew it was meant to be reassuring but he had a feeling that it was designed to soften the blow.

"Yes," Boss replied solemnly, Ari's heart leapt at her tone. Had something bad happened to Gracie? "I know it's hard to let go of people you care about-"

"What do you mean by 'let go'?" Ari interrupted. What was Boss saying? "Has something happened?"

"No, nothing bad has happened to Gracie. She's fine," Boss took in a deep breath. "I know you probably won't do this but I have to ask you. Please distance yourself from her. If you keep fuelling your feelings for her you'll get hurt."

Ari's eyes widened. "Why are you asking me to do this?" He was confused. Why were his emotions towards Gracie any of Boss's business? 

"I don't want to see the situation with Joseph Hannah and Gracie Bismarck get any messier than it is. They're both working hard to make it work, and you could be a distraction for Gracie."

Ari bit his lip. He couldn't be hearing this. He felt the brown eyes of his superior watch him, taking in his reaction.

"Soulmates aren't always meant for each other," he knew his answer was dangerous. 

"Please Ari. It's best for Gracie," Boss's voice tried to soothe him.

"Have you asked Joseph to stay away from Harri?" Ari got defensive. "That would be best for Gracie. Since they're both working _so_ hard," Ari clenched his jaw. He always knew that it was pointless to harbour feelings for Gracie. He knew that he no chance with the witch, she had a soulmate. A soulmate that was completely wrong for her in every single way possible, but he was still her soulmate. Joseph Hannah still completed her, in a way Ari knew he never could.

Boss spoke, amazed by Ari's words. "Who's Harri?" her eyes narrowed.

Ari sighed, "A girl at school who's wants Hannah."

Boss shook her head. Dealing with seventeen year olds was trying. "Oh, I wasn't aware of any other influences."

Ari gave a weak smile, "Yeah."

Boss looked at Ari. "I don't know what to do."

"How 'bout stay out of it and let everyone sort it out in their own messy way?" Ari suggested viciously, golden eyes glinting maliciously at the older woman.

~*~

  
Harriet looked at her family. Her mother was aging ungracefully, her father was a slob on the tattered couch in the lounge room, beer in hand and the football turned up loud. Her little sister was making chocolate chip muffins in the kitchen. Batter smeared across her cheek. The wrinkled eyes of Eve Miller looked at Harri who was working on her homework.

"How was your day?" The question was routine and Harri wondered if her mother even noticed her answer.

"I'm working okay? Leave me alone," Harri snubbed her mother.

Harri didn't notice the hurt look in her mother's hazel eyes. She ignored the love that her mother offered her. Harri had ignored her family's love for her for years. Harri wasn't even sure that they were related anymore. Her isolation was self-inflicted. 

"Harri, do you want to lick the bowl?" Sally asked from the kitchen bench. Harri glanced up; her sister's face was a mess. Harri restrained herself from a biting comment and rolled her eyes.

"No, thanks Sally."

 "Are you sure, 'cause it's really yummy," the twelve year old persisted. 

"I'm fine," the icily reply sprung from her lips.

Harri looked down at her homework. The words sounded crap to her and she screwed up her nose at it. The English essay wasn't making any sense to her.  
Harri wasn't aware of the cold glare that her sister threw after her. Harri left the table she was working on. She marched up the stairs books in hand and threw them on her desk when she made it to her room. She sighed. Her family irritated her. Her sister so innocent, so sweet and her mother…. trying so hard to make her family work. Pity that Eve Miller's husband was redundant and the family only had one income. William Miller had been unemployed for a very long time. Harriet wondered why she didn't hear arguments late at night when her father was intoxicated with alcohol mixed with despair and why her mother still bothered to speak to her. It was better this way. It was better, Harriet thought, to ignore them and pretend that the world was perfect.

Harriet pressed the play button on her stereo listening to the wails of the distressed singer pump through her speaker. She sung along, knowing the words off by heart as she changed into her pyjamas.

She crawled into her bed, snuggling into her doona. Her family made her sick. They did nothing to help themselves. Nothing to help her, her father drunk and drunk, and her mother lived in her disillusioned world and her sweet sister. Sally Miller annoyed Harri to no end.

The phone rang down stairs. Harri sat up, waiting for someone to answer it. One ring, two rings, three rings, four rings. Harri got out of bed, five rings, and started back down the stairs. No more rings. Her saddened mother looked at her, "for you."

Harri took the phone from her mother's hands, nodding her superficial thanks. 

"Hello?" Harri took the cordless phone to her room. Snuggling back into her bed.

"Harri? This is Ari," the boy on the other end sounded deadly calm.

"Oh," Harri was confused. Since when did Ari call her? Since when did Ari have her phone number? "How are you?"

"Well y'know. I'm pissed," the blatant honesty shocked her. The deadly calm twisted into something sharper, something that would somehow hurt her if only she knew how.

"Oh why?" curiosity made her ask. She sensed a danger in him.

"Well you obviously know that I like Gracie," the eagle 'shifter on the phone spoke, the certainty in his words were tainted with anger.

"Well you're not denying it," confusion clouded Harriet. She thought about what he had seen in his eyes earlier. It was there the infatuation he held for her mahogany haired friend. There had been protection and love in those golden eyes as they had looked upon Gracie.

"No," Ari sighed, "I'm not. Are you going to deny that you're interested in Joseph Hannah?"

"He's a very interesting person," Harri replied. She wondered absently if she was incriminating herself.

"I'll take that as a yes," Ari responded, voice like tempered steel. "Why are you doing this?"

Harri was confused about the conversation; she didn't understand why it was any of Ari's business. Why he cared so much about what happened to Gracie, after all they were only in high school. It wasn't like she was going to marry any of the guys she went out with. 

"Doing what Ari? I haven't done anything," Harri defended herself from his accusatory tone. 

"Yet," Ari conceded.

Harri had to smile. No, she hadn't done anything yet. "Ari, calm down all right? If I get mine, you get yours." Ari stayed silent. Harri could feel his despise emanating through the phone. Ari?"

"What?" the loathing thickened his voice. Making it heavy and all the more solid. Harri flinched at the sound. 

 "Why did you call me?" the question was the only thing she could think of to break the silence. "I know you don't like me for what you think I'm doing. So why bother?"

"Stay away from Hannah. If Gracie was ever your friend just stay away," the warning sounded tired and frustrated. Odium threaded though his voice like a serpent slithering through the grass. 

A cruel smile spread across Harriet Miller's lips. It was a smile that meant she was accepting a challenge. "Or else what?"

~*~

Rosie Willow worried about her partner. He had come back from his meeting with Boss angry. His golden eyes burning, fury and rage smouldering.  
Rosie had seldom seen the shapeshifter that angry. The few times were enough for her to know that she never wanted to see it again.

The sound of a phone being smashed into its cradle made Rosie's hairs stand on end. 

"Ari?" she called gently. No answer. Rosie became worried, "Ari?" she called again louder this time, louder and more commanding.

Rosie crept into the rec room Ari had been using the phone in. It was empty besides the golden-eyed boy with silvery blonde hair crouched in the corner. His jaw was clenched, and his eyes flashed murderous thoughts.

 "Ari?" Rosie asked. Not sure if the boy would speak. 

"What?" he asked sullenly. Rosie saw tears glistening on his cheeks.

 "What did Boss say?" she was sure Ari would inflict his anger on her. Instead he stayed silent. Rosie looked at him pity in her heart. She didn't know what to do. "Would you like a drink?"

Ari glanced at her. Rose decided it would not do to show that she was frightened by what she saw in his eyes. 

"No," Ari replied clearly.

"Who were you talking to?" Rosie asked. Maybe that was the reason he was so angry.

"Harriet Miller," Ari replied, bitterness twisting the name into a bad word.

Rosie understood at once. This had something to do with the witch. "It was about Gracie wasn't it?"

Rosie's partner nodded. Rosie was glad to get some response out of him. She wanted him to be his normal self. He was much easier to deal with that way.

"I've been asked to stay away," Ari told her bitterly. More teardrops slid down his cheek. Rosie couldn't understand why he was letting this girl tear him apart from the inside. "Boss asked me to stay away from Gracie. I might be a distraction she said; me a distraction? Gracie's never seen me anything more than a vague acquaintance. If you asked her I'm sure she wouldn't even say we were friends."

Rosie listened to her friend and colleague.

"I mean, I've always like her, before she found Joseph I had a crush on her. I didn't realise how much I cared until I found out I could never have her," Ari sighed, trying to dry his tears with his sleeve. "I'm so stupid Rosie. I should just get over it. Really, I should."

Rosie kneeled beside him, putting an arm around him and letting him cry onto her shoulder. "It'll work out alright?" she told him. Not sure if she had just lied to him.  
  
  



	5. Chapter V: Not All Things

TITLE: Green

  
DISCLAIMER: Nightworld concepts belong to LJ Smith. Characters belong to me…ask if in the unlikely event that any take your fancy and you want to use them

  
SUMMARY:  "…Joseph would never use her like he had used other girls. He had never fed from her and never would unless she let him. Harri's name entered her mind unbidden; Harri was with her soulmate right now. Harri who's innocent smile made Gracie want to slash the girl's throat with a nice sharp and pointy kitchen knife…."

Gracie Bismarck always knew that her relationship with her soulmate Joseph Hannah wouldn't be easy, but she never expected so many humans to get in her way.

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Coffee-Freak: Hey thanks for the compliment even though it's about an evil character…she's not an evil mary sue is she? 'cause that could be bad….thanks for reading and reviewing!!!

Sharmeen: Hey, thanks…I'm glad you think the plot line is unique. Gracie just isn't that type of girl that's all, but I think she should take notice of Ari…Thanks again for reviewing

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CHAPTER V

Peter waited for his stepsister to come downstairs. "Gracie? Hurry up!"

Lily-May was at the table digging in to a healthy breakfast of _Coco Pops._

A pyjama clad, sleepy eyed girl stood at the top of the stairs. "Lemme alone Pete. I'm not going today."

  
Peter stared at Gracie. "Why?"

  
"She's needs a break, Pete leave her alone," Peter's stepfather told him. Peter looked at the grey-eyed man that had married his mother. 

  
"Why?"

  
Gracie had sleepwalked back to her room. Peter stared at his younger half-sister. "Why? Somebody please tell me why she gets a break from school, but I who is doing an extra subject and hasn't had a break from school in three years does not get a day off."

  
 "Because I'm in charge of you and not Jake," Peter's mother answered for him, giving a quick peck on the cheek. "Now, hurry up otherwise you'll be late."

  
Peter glared at Phyllis Bismarck. His mother waved him off.

  
"Bye," Peter departed the dining room, grabbing his bag.

  
He headed to his Holden commodore, when he heard the soft catfall of Joseph Hannah from his stepsister's window. Peter turned to Gracie's soulmate.

  
"Morning Haywood," greeted Joseph. A smirk slid onto his features.

  
Peter glared. Nothing could have prepared him for seeing Joseph jump from one of the windows in his house. Well, nothing except a warning from Gracie. "Were you here all night?"

  
Joseph's smirk evolved into a full-blown smile. "What of it?"

  
Peter watched the vampire. He looked terrible but he still had the annoying air of I-don't-care-what-you-think-because-I'm-badder-than-you confidence surrounding him. "Do you know what you're doing to her?"

  
Joseph's smile died as if a candle had been blown out inside of him. "It's not any of your business Haywood."

  
 "She's family Hannah, it's my business," Peter replied. Joseph just looked at him, and shrugged.

  
 "Whatever," the indifference in his voice angered Peter. Joseph should care. Gracie was his soulmate, "You'll be late. Better scurry along now." Joseph chuckled leaving Peter to drive to school.  
  


~*~

Ari slammed the locker door shut. He was still frustrated and angry he couldn't understand how one human girl could be so callous. Rosie watched him and gave him a sad smile. Yeah, he thought, I'm still pissed.

"Goddess Ari. You'll break the hinges," Rosie commented.

  
"Then the hinges will match me," Ari told her sullenly. He knew that he should being trying to follow orders but he didn't have the heart. That was the problem. His heart.

  
 "Ari it's not that bad."

Ari turned and glared at Rosie. She smiled. His golden eyes narrowed more.

  
 "When was the last time you were obsessed with someone you couldn't have?" Ari asked her grumpily. 

Rosie laughed at him, and this made him all the more grumpier, "I hate you." He told her defiantly. Not being resigned to the fact that he was sulking. He was and he knew it but he couldn't stand it anymore. He couldn't stand that Harriet Miller still drew breath and that Joseph Hannah was linked to Gracie.

  
 "You need to hunt," was all his partner would say, and the eagle inside him agreed. He needed to be free again. He needed something that would make him feel something else besides this cold hatred and unfulfilled love.

  
Ari Lindsay could almost feel the wind beneath his wings.

~*~

Gracie Bismarck opened her eyes to stare at her ceiling. She could feel him right _there_, a menace in her mind. He was confused and ready to cause trouble at every turn. Joseph Hannah would never be a decent person, Gracie decided. He wasn't even decent to her and she knew that he loved her. 

Maybe that was half the problem. He loved her. Joseph Hannah, a vampire who had been the stereotypical vampire for so long had forgotten that he could love. Gracie wondered if his mother had ever cared. She wiggled in her bed.

  
What kind of mother would raise a child to be so incapable of emotion that when he did feel some he freaked?

  
Gracie already knew the answer. A vampiric mother, but Joseph's name was so normal, so human. Joseph Hannah. Joseph an ordinary name, it didn't fit the pattern. Gracie sighed. Her philosophical thoughts were making her hungry. 

  
She climbed down the stairs. Her soulmate was still in her mind. Last night had scared her. She had never seen him cry. It was always her. Always her grey eyes streaming with salty tears, always asking him for comfort he didn't know how to give.  
Her father was in the study. She could hear him typing on the computer. Jake Bismarck worked for Circle Daybreak. At the moment he was transferring some ancient spells from the parchment to the computer. Gracie wondered if the magick would have an effect on the machine.

  
She popped two pieces of bread into the toaster, milling about the kitchen while she waited for the bread to turn golden brown.  
 "Have a good sleep?" her father had come into the kitchen switching on the kettle so make some tea. 

  
Gracie nodded, grateful that he had let her take a day off school. She couldn't stand going to that institution seeing Harriet Miller interact with Joseph. She could feel it just as well at home. 

  
 "Thanks for letting me stay home today," Gracie told her dad.

  
 "He's tearing you apart Gracie," her father answered, his matching grey eyes watching his oldest daughter. He noticed how much she looked like her deceased mother. "I can see it." Gracie didn't doubt that her father could see it. She just didn't want him to. "You need to stop him."

  
 "What can I do Dad?" she asked him as her toast popped up. She spread butter over it, melting it. "He's connected. It's not like I can push him away. You should know that," she spread vegemite over the toast and took the tea that her father had made her. 

  
 "I don't agree with what he's doing to you. The connection shouldn't be doing this to you. It's not healthy Grace."

  
Gracie stared at her father, "and you think I agree with it. It's made me a mess Dad. He's always there. If he blocks the link it comes back with a vengeance twice as strong. I get a bit of peace for a few hours and then everything overwhelms me. You and Phyllis never went through this. Both of you already knew how to feel."

Jake Bismarck looked at his daughter. She had grown up so much in the last three months. He didn't know what to do to make Gracie better. To make her less confused and less angry, probably because he wasn't the one that was meant to make her feel those things. He was just her father. "Maybe we could get Joseph counselling. I mean he's obviously had a lot to deal with."

  
Grace tried not to choke on her tea. She failed. "Joseph would kill the poor counsellor. If he didn't try and kill you first for suggesting it."

  
 "He needs help Gracie. Serious help, it's not fair on you for him to pour all his problems on to you."

  
Gracie studied her father. He knew how wonderful the link could be; he and Phyllis shared a loving healthy relationship. Gracie didn't, all she knew was it filled her with sorrow. Oh, it made her feel great when she wasn't paranoid that Joseph would cheat on her. At first she had been so happy. Joseph Hannah had been perfect in her eyes; she had been blind to the fact that only imperfection exists. The first weeks had been the typical fluffy romance that anyone would have expected. Joseph said that he would join Daybreak, Joseph had been happy to her for the first few weeks. Joseph had been holding off the link for the first few weeks. Only letting her feel what he wanted her to feel. Things disintegrated from there. When the link rebounded, Gracie felt everything he had kept hidden for the first few weeks. His angst, frustration, confusion and his depression, Joseph Hannah didn't know what to do with a soulmate. An ordinary girl? Yes, but someone who was bound to him for eternity. He was clueless.

  
 "All's fair in love and war," Gracie quoted. Wondering which one she was fighting in. Was she in a war against her soulmate and Harriet Miller? She knew that she certainty was not in love with that sneaky bitch. No, she was definitely in a war with her, but what about Joseph? She did love him, didn't she? He was the other half of her, and he could melt her with his deep blue eyes, and promises that she always knew he wouldn't keep. Or was it just the curséd link that made her think that?  
  


"Not all things Gracie," her father answered, moving out of the kitchen.  
  


Gracie's head hurt.

~*~

The bell shrilled through the air as Harriet Miller stalked through the doors of the year twelve common room; she ignored the mob of students pushing to get to lockers and rushing to classes. She had a study line; she didn't have to be anywhere anytime soon. She smiled at her friends who waved to her as they moved off to their various classes.

Harri sighed; Ari's warning echoed in her head, just stay away. She wondered why he cared, yeah she knew that Ari had a crush on the girl, but what was so good about Gracie Bismarck that she attracted both Joseph Hannah and Ari Lindsay? Both boys were incredibly good looking, not to mention their alluring eyes, that were so deep and spoke of eons past. 

She marched to her locker, the weight of her bag weighing her down. She stared at the combination lock, spinning it back and forward, quickly and deftly. Tugging down at it, waiting for the click that would release the door. Harriet shoved her bag into it, searching for books that had homework she needed to do in them. She let the books in her arms fall to the table she was sitting at; Maria Stapleton glanced up at her.

"Hey," the blonde greeted her, pale blue eyes smiling.

"Hi, Ria, what are you up to?"

"Chem, I swear Gregories is a sadist," Maria grimaced at her textbooks splayed across the table.

"Yeah, I'm so glad I quit Chem," Harri searched the common room, her hazel eyes scanning for a ruddy brown head. Her eyes didn't find what they were looking for and were disappointed at the lack of Joseph Hannah.

She opened her folder and stared at her messy handwriting, words ran into each other. The essay repeated itself. Harri was tempted to scrunch it up, but no, she had to keep on working.

"Nah, Falcon will never go for it," the voice filled her ears. Shivers trickled down her spine. It was the same voice that had threatened her the night before. Something buzzed in the atmosphere as she turned around to face deadly golden eyes. Golden eyes that contained so much more than the words the owner had uttered over the phone.

Honey golden eyes that promised destruction if she so much as looked at Joseph Hannah. Ari Lindsay's eyes made her shiver. She looked down, focusing on the ink that moved across the paper.

~*~

Joseph wandered through the gym. It was empty. He was surprised there was usually a year eight physical education class on. His feet thudded across the wooden floorboards. He was empty.

For the first time in three months Joseph Hannah felt like his normal self. He felt like he had some kind of control. He finally felt like he was not at some witch's mercy every time he moved.

She wasn't in his head. Oh, he could still feel her, the slight presence right in the corner of his mind. The link would connect them forever. He knew that. He knew that he would always feel her. Feel every minute detail that flickered through her mind. It was a confusing slideshow playing in the back of his mind. And today he was free. 

He bounced the basketball that was in his hands, doing a little dribble, and then he shot. The ball echoed as it rebounded off of the backboard. His angry blue eyes followed the ball as it rolled away. 

~*~

Harriet turned to face the double doors of the common room that were open. They squealed open, her hazel eyes filled with disappointment as two Asian girls moved through. They were not what she wanted; she looked back at her essay. It still bothered her, and the words melded into some nonsensical primordial soup. The doors squeak again, casually she glanced up, four times the doors had been opened and four times Joseph Hannah had failed to appear. Disappointment racked her emotions again as a tall boy made his way through the doors. He had blue eyes, and brown hair, but they were not the azure she longed to look into, and the hair did not have the reddish taint to it that she would have been content to run her fingers through it for eternity. She mused that both Joseph and Gracie were not at school to day, when the double doors wheezed open a fifth time. She looked up and smiled when she saw the ocean-eyed boy, with the ruddy brown hair casually waltz through the doors. He glanced around looking for a familiar face. She also cringed as she felt the deadly eyes of Ari Lindsay on her back. 

The ruddy haired vampire came towards her and slouched in the seat next to her.

"What up?" he asked her, a lazy smile gracing his lips. 

"The cruel and unusual essay Mrs G decided to inflict upon us," she motioned to the pages in front of her, most of which were covered in her ungainly scrawl that had been crossed out and scribbled over. 

"Oh, when's that due?" he asked casually, Harri felt his warmth against her legs. Her eyes wandered over to where Ari was watching her like the eagle he was. 

"Monday I think," she narrowed her eyes on to the offending essay, before glancing up. His full pink lips filled her eyes, and she longed to feel them on hers.

Joseph Hannah smiled. It was a heart-melting smile, a smile that was carefully designed to lull unsuspecting girls in to having their hearts flutter like wild butterflies beating against the iron of their imprisoning cage.

Joseph Hannah knew exactly what he was doing.

His toe nudged the brunette's ankle gently; she looked up at him coyly. A secretive smile spread over her lips as she fiddled with her pen.

She didn't dare mention the name that would bring them both back into a world they were trying their damnedest to ignore. No, they both just smiled and Harri let Joseph forget about his soulmate.

She giggled demurely, and flirted with him. Brushing him away, all the time aware of golden eyes glaring on. Speaking silent death threats, and unspoken warnings. 

Joseph's blue held her hazel ones, for a minute second and Harri could have sworn she had seen flecks of grey the same shade as Gracie's embedded in them.

All was forgotten as Joseph squeezed her hand. 

"What?" she whispered. Her other hand rested comfortably on his knee. 

"C'mon," he smiled, cheekiness emanating off of his sharp white grin. 

"C'mon…?" she asked, confusion whirled in her mind. His fingers intertwined with hers, and she felt herself being hauled out of her chair as the boy in front of her dragged her out of the year twelve common room.  
  


The golden stare dissipated, and she felt safer away from the murderous eyes of Ari Lindsay. Joseph still had a hold of her hand she and she followed him reluctantly.

"Where are we going?" she laughed, curiosity itching in her mind. 

"We're ditching," he gave her a bright smile.

"Why?" she asked feeling slightly uncomfortable. Wagging was not one of her pastimes, the last time she had done it she was fourteen, and it had been more out of forgetting what time it was than purposely ditching.

"To taste the promises of freedom," he laughed at her, and his arm slid across the back of her waist, "Why not?"

His arm felt so comforting, and he was warm in the darkness of the grey rain clouds condemning her. 

Why bother, was the thought that crept in her mind, but she followed him. He was what she wanted. She had wanted this dark, ruddy haired, sapphire-eyed boy, right?

Those sparkling blue eyes watched her, and she smiled at him, pushing the golden ones out of her mind. Ari couldn't hurt her.

"You don't have to come if you don't want," he told her. Offence slid into her insidious mind.

"No, I was just curious, that's all," she assured him. He nodded and they approached his car.

The black vehicle, pulled out with the treacherous couple inside hand in hand.


	6. Chapter VI: Sweet Dreams Are Made of Thi...

TITLE: Green

  
DISCLAIMER: Nightworld concepts belong to LJ Smith. Characters belong to me…ask if in the unlikely event that any take your fancy and you want to use them

  
SUMMARY:  "…Joseph would never use her like he had used other girls. He had never fed from her and never would unless she let him. Harri's name entered her mind unbidden; Harri was with her soulmate right now. Harri who's innocent smile made Gracie want to slash the girl's throat with a nice sharp and pointy kitchen knife…."

Gracie Bismarck always knew that her relationship with her soulmate Joseph Hannah wouldn't be easy, but she never expected so many humans to get in her way.

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Sharmeen: Hey, thanks again…. I did read your story…it's pretty good…your writing has developed a lot from the first chapter to the latest one…definitely a good thing…makes your writing a lot more enjoyable to read. Thanks for reviewing. 

Old Penguin: Love your name…sorry but it's such a wicked name. I have no idea what will happen after this chapter either…. which isn't a good thing because I should know the plot but it changes as words are typed out. I feel sorry for Ari too…maybe he'll have happiness…Thank you for reviewing I hope you like the next little bit

Annemarie delacour: Hi. Thanks for reviewing. Ari flip out and kill Harri and Joseph? Maybe…I like that idea but then where would Gracie be with her soulmate dead? Thanks again for reviewing…reviews give me motivation and trust me I always need motivation.

*Lyrics from Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) by Eurhythmics…

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CHAPTER VI 

_Sweet dreams are made of this_

_Who am I to disagree?_

_I travel the world and the seven seas_

Everybody's lookin' for somethin' 

~*~

Gracie found herself in her father's car. More importantly she found herself probing around in the depths of her mind, for a vampiric boy who had abused her trust one too many times.

She turned the corner, not really noticing the silver sedan that she was expected to give way to. The deadening silence in her mind overtook all of her priorities. 

Fresh anger consumed her as the realisation that he had broken another promise, a promise that was less than twenty-four hours old; a promise, which held her sanity in its uncertain and clumsy hands. Joseph Hannah has blocked the soulmate link again. 

Frustrated tears pinched at Gracie's eyes. She could not accept this anymore. Her father was right. The soulmate connection shouldn't be doing this to her. Joseph shouldn't be doing this to her. Joseph loved her.

_Then why_, the angry voice sniggered inside her, _why does he do this? Why does he block the link when he knows that neither of you can bear what it does to you when it rebounds? _

The tears slid down her cheeks and she made no effort to wipe them clear as she pulled up in the student car park. She breathed in deeply. In and out, she was going to be calm, ignoring the storm inside her, the storm that desperately wanted freedom, the storm that wanted to destroy all the causes of her agony, the storm that wanted revenge on her soulmate and destruction for Harriet Miller.

Gracie fought within herself knowing that any loss of control could be unleashed as magick on the ignorant population. Emotions swirled with the power she knew lay inside of her, crackling like lightning.

The car door slammed behind her, but she paid no heed. She had to find him. Find him and punish him. Tell him exactly what he could do with his love, and that if he was going to block the link that he should block it forever. Gracie was sick and tired of her soulmate's disregard for her. The double doors of the common room flew open as she searched for the ruddy mop of hair that had caused so much anguish in her soul.

She scanned the tables. He wasn't there. Gracie breathed in deeply. Golden eyes found her and she stared. Ari Lindsay was troubled; his spectacular eyes always gave him away.

"What do you know?" she demanded. Not saying hi, no, no greetings for anyone. Joseph had gone too far. His insecure whispers last night were too fresh in her mind. The salty tears that had been shed were for once not hers but his, and he had played her. Joseph was a vampire, Gracie always knew that, and he had simply done what came naturally. He had manipulated her, lulled her into a false sense of security and now he was poised to strike.

Ari's golden eyes were so apologetic that Gracie wanted to claw at his face. "I'll get her, Gracie, know that."

The words didn't fit in her head, her…her, that sneaky little viper. Gracie's grey eyes widened, Harriet Miller. Joseph didn't want her to know that he was with Harri. "Where are they?"

Confusion filled Ari's compassion lit eyes. "Gracie don't go…okay?"

Ari's voice didn't reach her. Gracie felt something in the little corner of her mind where the soulmate connection lived. It tweaked and suddenly Gracie was calmer than she ever thought she would be. She would get that girl. A smile played across her lips, a smile that terrified Ari beyond belief.

Harriet Miller would die.

~*~

Thunder shuddered over the sky. Harriet Miller snuggled into the warm mass of flesh beside her. The wind whipped her face and she shielded it in to his neck, her lips delicately dancing over his skin.

His hands warmed her skin as they crept around her body, pleasantly burning her with desire. Lips met lips and they fused. Joseph Hannah was with her now. Harri had gotten what she wanted.

She drew away from him, his blue eyes dancing with mirth. The sea before them was a murky green, and it scared her to look up at the chaotic sky. It had been made grey by the darkening storm clouds and flashes of lightning lit of the sky, becoming thunderbolts of fury. Still there was no rain. No tears shed from the sky that reminded Harri so much of a huge grey eye condemning her.

Joseph leant in again, not content with the silence between them and Harri met his soft lips, once again their mouths merged. Harri felt uncomfortable, but she let his mouth roam her jaw and flit down her neck. She moaned blissfully, losing her hands in his hair.

Thunder clapped again, and Harri opened her eyes. Was he biting her? Joseph was engrossed in her neck; tiny pricks sent her hairs on ends. His tongue lingered over the skin their and-

~It's okay, ~ 

Harri's eyes widened, but he held her so strong and comfortingly in his arms. Harri fell back and she felt the sand grains press against her. 

~Just go to sleep, ~ he told her. Harri desperately wanted to look into his eyes to ask if this was real, but felt her eyelids closing against her eyeballs, against her will.

~*~

The expression on Gracie's face made Ari shiver. The pure malice written on every curve of her body was frightening. This was not the girl Ari loved.

"Do you know where they are?" the question seemed reasonable. In fact nothing in her voice showed that she intended _they_ any harm, but Ari knew who _they _were, and he knew that there was steel hidden in her words.

"Gracie, you don't want to do this," Ari told her, reaching out to take her arm. Just to touch her and try to anchor into the world of rational thought. 

Her grey eyes flashed and Ari knew he had seen a sword concealed in them, he also knew that he would destroy Harriet Miller for her. All she had to do was ask, but not until she had come back to him. "You have no idea what it's been like Ari," her voice was polite but dismissive, "you have no idea what it's like to be pushed away and stored in cupboard where sometimes you get taken out and played with, but then you're put back away, cracked and torn," she held his golden eyes, and Ari could see all the pain and distress her soulmate had put her through, but she was wrong. He knew what it was like to be dismissed because you weren't enough or what they wanted. Ari Lindsay knew what it was like to have your heart trodden on, but it still belonged to them. Your heart always belonged to them, because somehow, some way they had got you under their spell, an enchantment that will last forever.  Ari knew that he would always care about the mahogany haired and grey-eyed witch the stood before him with violent intentions. 

"No," Ari said his voice devoid of emotion because for him to show it would cause too much pain. It would cause too many complications, none of which he wanted to deal with, "you're right," he gave a bitter chuckle, "I don't know what it's like to be torn apart by something I can't control."

Nothing glimmered in those grey eyes of hers. No sparkle of understanding, no glint of epiphany. Nothing. There was just solid dull determination. Gracie Bismarck was resolved to see Harriet Miller torn limb from limb just for breathing, let along being with her soulmate when she was not.

"Look," she told him impatiently, "I can find him now. You can help me or not Ari. Just don't try and stop me."

"I care about you Gracie," Ari told her; it felt as if something had been lifted of his shoulders, but it was not the whole truth. "I can't let you do this. You'll regret it later."

Gracie tried to push past him. Ari sighed and grabbed her wrists, ignoring the onlookers from the nearest table. "Gracie."

She wouldn't look up at him, she just keep on pushing at him, "Gracie," he tried again but she was resisting him, struggling against him. Ari adjusted his grip.

He took her arm firmly, pulling her swiftly outside of the common room, pushing her against the brick wall by her shoulders. "Gracie," she didn't look up and tried once more to push away.

"What?" she asked him bitterly, "what the hell do you want?"

"I want you to promise me that you'll go to Daybreak and stay there," he told her, "and I want you to keep it, no matter what kind of promises you're used to."

Gracie looked up at him, biting her lower lip. "What if I don't?"

Ari stared into her grey eyes, wondering what had happened to make her snap. How much had she endured for him? How many times had Joseph abused her trust? Ari wanted to know why Joseph couldn't see what a kind of girl he had in Gracie Bismarck. Why didn't Joseph Hannah see that Gracie Bismarck was one in a million?

"Then I will take you there myself and lock you into one of those padded cells they keep for hostiles," Ari answered, seriousness weaved through his voice as he warned her.

"You wouldn't?"

Ari gave a smiled that he hadn't used in a long time, a smile that he knew was his predator's smile. "Wouldn't I?

~*~

The afternoon sun peeked out through the rain clouds as Peter Haywood opened the boot of his car. He was shoving his bag into the car and closing the boot when he saw the black car of Joseph Hannah pull into the car park. He watched it as two figures got out.

"Come on Sunday, alright?" a feminie voice told what Peter could only assume was Joseph. 

"I hardly know the girl," Joseph's voice dismissed the casual command as he walked with an arm around the hazel-eyed girl that was Harriet Miller.

Peter's eyes narrowed bitterly at the girl who he guessed was the cause of his stepsister's pain. Unfounded hatred bubbled in him as he imagined what Gracie's unfaithful soulmate had been doing.

"So?" Harri smiled up at Joseph, "Come a little bit before then. I want to see you."

"I don't know Harri," Joseph's arm dropped away from the girl's waist. Peter crouched by his back tyre, pretending to check it out. He was sure that Joseph would see him anyway, but the girl might not.

"Please?" Harri's voice pleaded, "it'll be fun."

Joseph scanned the car park, "maybe," his eyes spotting Peter's dismal attempt at subterfuge, "I'll call you okay?"

Harriet was unconvinced, but popped up to give Joseph a lingering kiss. Joseph untwined his hand from hers and waving her off. Peter watched the girl walk away. He was not blind to the happiness in the girl's walk.

"You bastard," Peter told his stepsister's soulmate. Protectiveness growling in his voice, his vocal cords trembling with fury, "you fucking bastard."

"Whoa," Joseph backed away mockingly. Both of them knew who possessed the greater strength. "She's nothing, I was just using her for a feed."

Peter clenched his jaw, "yeah, and that makes it alright?" Disgust lined his voice and Peter wished he had enough strength to smash the smug smirk off of Joseph's face. "She's just a blood donor to you, but she _is _a person not some cow in an abattoir. Oh, and let's not forget you have a _soulmate_. Imagine how she feels? You always promise Gracie the world, then steal it away from under her feet."

Joseph continued to smile somewhat reminiscent of the Cheshire cat. He seemed to find Peter's rage _very_ amusing, "y'know Pete? I've always wondered why you care so much?" the taller boy paused, "What?" he gave a little laugh,  "Was there something between you two before I came on the scene? I mean I'm curious; she's only your _step_sister? Why so much emotion?"

Peter breathed in deeply trying to strangle the inner voice that told him lunging for Joseph's throat would be the best course of action. "You sick, sick bastard. To even suggest… I'm not the one who's morally challenged."

"Oh?" Joseph raised an eyebrow; "sorry then. Look I get enough rage from your _sister._ I don't need this crap from you." He opened the driver's door of his car, slipping in before racing off. Leaving a very pissed off Peter Haywood muttering curses.

~*~

He did it. Gracie stared at the white walls. Everything was white. She still couldn't believe Ari had done it.

He had lifted her up and carried her to his car kicking and screaming. No one had batted an eyelid, and that was what scared her more. No one wondered why she was being manhandled by the eagle 'shifter. They had just accepted it. _Something is seriously wrong with the world_, Gracie thought, _no one had even tried to stop Ari from taking me away. _

She had scratched him, she had seen the red welts that had appeared on his wrist, but she had forgotten. He had dealt with hostiles for he was part of the darker side of Daybreak and she was nothing compared with that. She had the beginnings of bruises on her wrists, and she rubbed them trying to forget what Ari had said. "I care about you, Gracie."

She shut her eyes. The words had rushed over her before. Before when she could only think of the thousand ways she would torture Harriet Miller. She still had the mental list of hexes and curses she could place on the girl, but Ari's words echoed again. The strength in him when he had abducted her against her will amazed her. She didn't really know what being an agent meant, her family was just a number in the books. A group of members who did odd jobs for the organization, people who could be called on as healers and who could rely on the circle's protection if they ever needed it. Gracie didn't work for Daybreak, she wasn't like Ari and Rosie who occupied positions on the pay roll. 

Gracie sighed; at least she wasn't in a straightjacket. Ari had threatened that too, while they were in the car. The shock on the receptionist's face when he had hauled her into the building was priceless, but his superior's agreement to the suggestion that she had gone temporarily insane and a padded cell would be best for the time being had shocked her twice as much.

Gracie glared at the white wall. Damn him, she thought, damn him for caring and damn Joseph for not knowing how to care.

The knock at the cells door made Gracie jump. She saw golden eyes peer through the slit. 

"Happy?" she asked him bitterly. Anger threaded through her and she could feel it burn under her skin.

"No," Ari replied solemnly, "you?"

"Thrilled," she told him, her voice flat and uninterested. 

"Boss called your Dad," he told her. He was sad, Gracie could tell by the tone of his voice.

"Oh…and?"

Ari's eyes searched for her gaze but she wouldn't let him hold it, something in his eyes scared her…maybe it was the predatory way he had looked at her earlier when he told her what he would do if she didn't keep her promise. "He was going to come down, but the missing car left him no way of transport."

Gracie tried not to smile; she had forgotten how she had made it to her father's car. She knew only that she had driven it to school because that was the last place she had felt Joseph in her mind. "Tell him I'm sorry."

"He's waiting till Pete gets home," Ari sighed, "What were you going to do?"

Gracie looked through the slit this time to stare into Ari's eyes, "Oh, I dunno." Gracie smiled, "I was going to go after them and lose my temper again, probably fry Harriet Miller with witch fire or maybe organise for her to get struck by lightning…"she sighed, slightly surprised by the vindictive thought that came next, "but really…I ought to thank you for locking me up in here." Ari just stared at her, "because now I have more time to plot the awful things I'll do to her."

"You'll regret it," Ari told her, his voice so certain of what he said. "When you've calmed down and are normal again, you'll regret it."

Gracie cocked her head to the side, "I don't think I will."

Ari closed the slit, and Gracie heard footsteps recede from the door. She swore. She hated the way his vibrant golden eyes had looked at her with pity and sadness. 

~*~

_Some of them want to use you_

_Some of them want to get used by you_

_Some of them want to abuse you_

_Some of them want to be abused___


	7. Chapter VII: Songs of Life

TITLE: Green

  
DISCLAIMER: Nightworld concepts belong to LJ Smith. Characters belong to me…ask if in the unlikely event that any take your fancy and you want to use them

  
SUMMARY:  "…Joseph would never use her like he had used other girls. He had never fed from her and never would unless she let him. Harri's name entered her mind unbidden; Harri was with her soulmate right now. Harri who's innocent smile made Gracie want to slash the girl's throat with a nice sharp and pointy kitchen knife…."

Gracie Bismarck always knew that her relationship with her soulmate Joseph Hannah wouldn't be easy, but she never expected so many humans to get in her way.

WARNING: As you may have noticed from Chapter VI I like to use all of my English vocabulary…unfortunately this means that some words classified as 'swear,' words are used, simply because I'm not a saint and don't have the literary skill to imply that a character has used these words without actually stating what they are…sorry if this offends anyone.

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Sharmeen: I'm glad you find it interesting…it seems to be turning into some sort of expanding thing (ideas keep coming to me and I don't know how fast I can write them)…I'm on holidays at the moment so I can update quickly but year twelve beckons…trust me as soon as school starts again I'll be writing up pracs and essays instead of this…good luck with your fic…thanks again for reviewing.

annemarie delacour: Awww. Thanks. I don't know what to say…I hope this one lives up to it's expectations. Thanks for reviewing

Old Penguin:  I hope you enjoy this chapter just as much…it's a little bit depressing I think but oh wells. Harri's well human… and she doesn't really know what she's messing with. Oh I hate Joseph too…I can't write him without loathing him…I think he loathes himself too…and well Gracie's not perfect and Ari…I love Ari. Poor thing. Thanks for reviewing I hope you like the next chapter as much as the last

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CHAPTER VII

Joseph stared at the fluorescent numbers of his microwave clock. He still couldn't feel her. The recesses of his mind were still and it pained him.

He knew he wouldn't beg forgiveness, not this time. He felt no guilt. The judging eyes of her stepbrother floated to his mind.

No one could judge him. No one.

He sighed. The desperate longing kisses of Harriet Miller still flickered in the walls of his memory. She had been so easy, so willing and so desperate to please him. It hadn't taken much to lead her down to the ravishing waters of the sea and feed from her.

Absently he wondered what her reaction would be to the deadly seductive secrets of the Nightworld. Would she be tantalised and want to know more or horrified that humans had a secret predator that lurked in the night?

Her blatant disregard for the silent rules of society made him wonder if the girl would fit into his old world. The old world where he was feared and fearless, where a witch had no power or control over him. The old world where he had lived before the accidental brush of skin on skin had electrocuted him into a world where morals and emotions lived. 

A tiny rumble in his mind frightened him. Yes, Joseph Hannah could feel fear now. Joseph Hannah could feel many things in this new world that Gracie Bismarck had tied him to and he didn't like it one bit.

A raindrop of rage sizzled in his mind, and a tumble of curses flowed after it. She was back. Gracie had re-entered his mind, and all feelings of freedom vanished within him. She didn't want him anymore. That much was clear from the ramblings that hissed and slithered through his mind. She didn't want to deal with his lack of emotions. She didn't want him anymore. She couldn't understand why he would do something that would hurt both of them so much. She didn't want him anymore. The pain that he caused her wasn't worth the fleeting moments of peace that they shared. She didn't want him anymore. He could have Harriet Miller, her raging mind told him because she didn't want him anymore.

Joseph held his head in his hands. This was his punishment. The fury and ire of the girl who was meant to complete him, but he had never felt completed. It had always felt wrong in the most right kind of way, but it hadn't filled him with content. It had made him uneasy, made him cautious and destroyed his beliefs and confidence. The soulmate connection had terrified him, and he had remained terrified. 

He expected the urge to go to her, to go to the other piece of his soul, but the urge never came. Instead revulsion flooded him like a violent waterfall. It filled him, and he screamed.

She didn't want him anymore.

~*~

Peter saw his stepfather waiting at the kitchen bench. That was what Jake Bismarck was doing; he was waiting, waiting for someone to heal his daughter. 

Peter saw the expression on Jake's face and dropped his school bag, his anger at what he had witnessed in the car park still fresh in his mind. "What's happened?"

Peter wasn't ready for any answer his stepfather could give, but still he knew he had to ask. Peter knew that something was wrong with his family. 

"Oh, Pete, you're home," the relief that flooded the older man's voice set Peter on edge. 

"Yeah and…?" the response was filled with expectancy. Peter wanted to know what was wrong. "What's happened Jake?"

Peter saw the concern and sadness in Jake's grey eyes and he wanted to shake the information out of him.

"Nothing really," his stepfather answered, "It's just Gracie, she took my car this afternoon, to go after Joseph," Jake Bismarck sighed, "She's at the CD centre. Ari Lindsay took her there, she's locked in a hostile cell."

Realisation dawned inside Peter as he took in the information his stepfather fed him. "Oh, so she knows."

The grey eyes of Jake Bismarck looked at his stepson, "knows what?"

"Is she alright?" Peter ignored his mother's husband's question. The nonchalance that Joseph had shown towards Gracie nipped at his sense of righteousness. Joseph should have cared about the effect his dalliance with Harriet Miller would have on Gracie. Joseph should have at the very least kept it secret. Anger seeped through Peter like poison.

"She'll be fine," his stepfather answered him, "What has Joseph done?"

Peter looked at the man who had claimed his mother's heart and that had introduced him to a world where love could break people, and jealously tore souls apart. Introduced him to a world where some people were linked forever, and where sometimes the wrong people were linked.

"You would never be able to imagine it Jake," Peter told him knowing that his stepfather could never envisage cheating on his own soulmate, "he's cheated on her."

Jake closed his eyes; he knew that Joseph Hannah didn't match his daughter. He knew that they would never work out. The moment he had been introduced to the tall blue-eyed vampire he had seen pain in his daughter's path…and he hadn't been able to stop it.

"Can I borrow your car?" the question shocked Peter.

"What?" 

"Can I borrow your car? Gracie took mine and your mum won't be home till late…." Jake explained, "Oh shit!"

Peter looked at his stepfather, "What?"

"I forgot to pick up Lily-May from kindy…stuff with Gracie. I was waiting for you to come home to borrow your car so I could go to the centre and-"

"Jake," Peter cut off his stepfather's rambling, "It's okay. I'll drive and we can pick up Lils on the way."

Jake Bismarck looked at his wife's son, amazed that he was able to think clearly when he so obviously couldn't, but then Gracie wasn't his daughter. Gracie wasn't even his real sister, "Right, sorry."

~*~

Ari's eyes glanced at the door to her cell. Sadness came over him. He would do it; he knew he would do it. 

He would do it for her.

He would commit a crime he knew he shouldn't, all because of those penetrating grey eyes that had looked at him with utter conviction when she had told him that she wouldn't regret it. 

But she would.

He knew that she would, he had regretted his own acts of revenge and the call for blood had never echoed in her. He was a predator; in his heart of hearts he knew this. He knew that blood sang a song for him, a song full of mystifying beauty and gruesome deeds. He knew that when his wings took form and beat upon the winds that the blood-song sang its loudest and called to him in a way no thing could.

Revenge sang a different song from its cousin. Ari knew this also; he knew the revenge-song sang bitter notes. He had listened to its twisted piercing sound. He knew that it was the song filling Gracie's ears now; revenge was whispering it's acrid words to her.

Ari remembered the blood that had been spilt for his sister's death, a death that had been cruelly dealt. He remembered the brainwashing thoughts that had filled his young mind, the thoughts that told him vengeance would heal him. Heal him of the horrors he had witnessed.

Ari sighed; staring at her door wouldn't help him. He didn't want her to know what he would do, but one more look at those grey eyes and mahogany hair...he would never get his portrait now. There was no way he could do this and still stay. Ari Lindsay was leaving.

Leaving to commit her revenge.

~*~

Gracie looked up at the slit, expecting golden eyes to look down at her with pity. Pity and something else she had decided not to place, but the eyes were grey and they matched her own.

"Dad?" 

The grey eyes continued to look at her and Gracie was scared. She had lost control today; she knew that Ari had been right to put her in a padded cell. She wanted to hurt Harriet Miller so badly, but he had stopped her. Telling her she would regret it. Her soul longed for revenge, longed to scar the girl that taken Joseph away from her just for a moment.

"Yes, Gracie," her father's voice confirmed, "It's me."

"Sorry about the car," Gracie apologised.

"It's fine sweetie, as long as you're okay everything's fine."

The tenderness and worry in Jake Bismarck's voice, sat uneasily with Gracie. He was wrong. Nothing was fine. Nothing would ever be fine, no while that slut still drew breath.

"Can I go home?" Gracie wanted out of this place where she had wasted the afternoon. Everything had been normal this morning; everything had been the same as it always was. Her family had gotten ready for their days, she had said goodbye to her dysfunctional soulmate and snuggled back under the covers to sleep, because everything was good. Joseph said that he wouldn't block the link anymore. He had promised.

He had promised.

He had broken that promise and something had broken in her. He had blocked it, blocked it so he could go off with Harriet Miller, an ordinary human girl. 

A _human_ girl.

Gracie was startled at the bitterness in the thought that Harriet was human. She wasn't prejudiced against humans. Her father's soulmate was human, her stepbrother was human, her sister was half-human, some of her closest friends were human. Closest friends... Harriet Miller used to be one of those, a close _human_ friend.

A human not related by blood or marriage. A human she couldn't trust. 

"Boss doesn't know," her father answered her question bringing her out of her reverie.

"What?" Gracie shook her head, "Why doesn't Boss know? She's the one who put me in here."

"Ari's gone missing," her father told her. Ari missing? The information didn't sit well. The pity and sadness in Ari's eyes, the way he had looked at her… he had looked at her as if he knew what she had been through with Joseph. 

"What do you mean missing? Can I least come out of the cell? I really need to go," Gracie told her father. Confusion welling up in her, she needed out of the white walls, she needed to find Harriet Miller and ask her why she thought that she a _human_ could ever have a chance with _her_ soulmate_._

~*~

Harri felt those golden shiver-inspiring eyes on her. She turned on the light in her darkened room, and there he stood, a silvery-haired golden-eyed angel. An angel of vengeance.

She had known that he seen them leave together. She had felt the safe when she knew that his golden eyes could no longer watch her with deadly patience.

Harri didn't feel safe now.

Ari Lindsay had perched himself against her desk, leaning there casually waiting. He didn't even move when she had entered her room. The air thickened around her, and Harriet Miller knew true fear.

Even the warm lust driven touches of Joseph Hannah wouldn't have been able to warm her up now. Ari's gold eyes had frozen her.

The golden boy gave a silver of a smile, a briefest flashing of teeth and a slight curve of lips, but that was it, then he moved.

She wasn't ready for it. He had moved so fast…so incredibly fast. Harri felt her back against the door. The door she had closed before turning on the light…closed knowing that he was in the room. She had never imagined that he would physically harm her, no matter what his enthralling eyes had promised.

He had her by the shoulders, her jumper protecting her against the imprints his nails would leave.

_Scream_, her mind told her, _scream and they will all come running. Scream and someone will save you._

Ari pressed a hand against her mouth.

~*~


	8. Chapter VIII: Ignorance Is Bliss

TITLE: Green

  
DISCLAIMER: Nightworld concepts belong to LJ Smith. Characters belong to me…ask if in the unlikely event that any take your fancy and you want to use them.

  
SUMMARY:  "…Joseph would never use her like he had used other girls. He had never fed from her and never would unless she let him. Harri's name entered her mind unbidden; Harri was with her soulmate right now. Harri who's innocent smile made Gracie want to slash the girl's throat with a nice sharp and pointy kitchen knife…."

Gracie Bismarck always knew that her relationship with her soulmate Joseph Hannah wouldn't be easy, but she never expected so many humans to get in her way.

WARNING: As you may have noticed from Chapter VI I like to use all of my English vocabulary…unfortunately this means that some words classified as 'swear,' words are used, simply because I'm not a saint and don't have the literary skill to imply that a character has used these words without actually stating what they are…sorry if this offends anyone.

This chapter contains an insinuation of rape. If this you are disturbed by this then I apologise. I wish such a terrible thing didn't exist.

*Lyrics from Disenchanted Lullaby by The Foo Fighters

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annemarie delacour: Aw, thanks…I was a bit iffy about the last chapter but you made my day. Thank you, you have no idea what your review means to me. Oh…I'm so happy! Thanks again for reviewing and I'm so glad you like my story.

Old Penguin: I don't know whether I should be sorry that it made you incoherent or glad that it affected you so much…Thank you so much for reviewing I don't know if this is going to such a profound chapter but I hope you enjoy it. 

Angel Dreams: Thanks so much…hope you enjoy the next bit.

Sharmeen: Oh I'm glad I proven myself…I've been writing ramblings for a very long time…but never been able to carry a plot this long, this is officially the longest thing I've ever written. I'm curious to know though. What small things? Thank you so much for your reviews, I hope I don't let you down.

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CHAPTER VIII
    
    _Sing along for yesterday,_
    
    _Sing along my soul to take,_
    
    _Sing along another song for you,_

_What's a boy to do?_

~*~

They had let her out. Let her out of that dreaded padded cell, still she wasn't allowed to go home. She was a 'potentially dangerous threat,' according to Boss Cedars. 

Gracie was developing quite a strong dislike towards the middle-aged lamia woman. Ari's superior was worried that she was the cause of her agent's departure. Gracie wanted to throttle the woman as those kindly brown eyes told her that it was in the best interests and safety of both her and the general public if she stayed the night at the Circle Daybreak Centre. 

Gracie had glared at the woman; she wanted to be at home. At home where she could slip out and go murder Harriet Miller in the night. _Not_ in the CD centre where she would be watched by the likes of Lincoln Chalcedony, Shade Garland and Ursula Helarctos. The trio of agents had made her feel like a criminal.

Gracie sat in a rec room. It was empty; a warning had been issued on her. She was a 'potentially dangerous threat,' she was only potentially dangerous to two people. One being her soulmate, the second Harriet Miller.

Peter had stayed at the centre, which was some comfort she guessed. Having Peter stay at the centre made her feel less like a criminal. Her father had left earlier with her younger sister. The young half-witch had looked at her with abnormal adult understanding. The only person in the whole building who understood her was a five year old and she had left.

A counsellor had been and gone. Boss had sent the poor man with black-rimmed glasses. Gracie had stared at him. Her grey eyes blank as he tried to do his job.

Then there was the curséd link. The block had gone when she had been talking to Ari. The hum in the back of her mind wasn't thrashing with emotions they way it normally did after it had been blocked. It was the normal buzzing that occurred, the feeling she had lived with for three months hoping and praying that it could only get better. Hoping that Joseph could change. Would change.

It wasn't right that she wanted him to change. She knew that she didn't really love him if she wanted him to change. The truth wasn't so hard to embrace when you had been thrown against a rocky cliff and discovered that you'd been all but broken against the sharp shards of rock.

She didn't really love him.

Gracie knew that she should. She knew that the soulmate link had entwined them together forever, and the he would always be hers no matter how hard she tried to put him away from her. He was hers.

Hers forever.

Hers forever and no one else could have him. No one could look at him with desire in their eyes, no one else could hold him and try and make him decent. No one could ever kiss him the way that she did. No one could ever listen to his tears as they fell the long distance to her shoulder. 

No one could ever make her feel the way he did.

No one could fill her with so much anger, so much frustration, so much passion…

…So much love.

The thought flicked like a candle desperate not to be extinguished. Gracie sighed. Maybe it was true after all. She did indeed love him, but she knew that he could be something else. Something greater than he was…something that she wanted him to be.

Footsteps came closer to the rec room and Gracie assumed it was one of her 'babysitters.'

It was Peter, his chocolate brown hair looked like he had been trying to rip it out. "Hi," he greeted, his voice sounded distressed and Gracie looked at her stepbrother.

"Hi," she sighed again.

"Tough day?" the question was pointless. They both knew it, but something had to be done to break the silence, to destroy the hazardous thoughts cruising through her mind.

"Yeah, well it's not every day your soulmate breaks a promise," she answered bitingly, "oh wait, it is when he's Joseph Hannah."

"I did-"Peter began.

"Say 'I told you so' and I'll set you alight," Gracie warned, her grey eyes watching her stepbrother close his mouth, "I know, you warned me. I didn't listen…now I'm hurt and angry."

"I'm sorry." Peter offered his condolences. 

"Not your fault," Gracie admitted, but she felt like everything was everybody's fault. "I shouldn't have trusted him as much as I did. I mean I thought that Harri wouldn't be able to touch him, that he wouldn't want her." Gracie sighed, "I was wrong."

Peter watched his stepsister, wondering if this was the time to tell her what he had seen. "I saw them, Grace." He waited for her reaction.

"When?" the question was urgent and demanding.

"This afternoon," he replied, "in the car park. They were saying goodbye. Gracie, he told me that he was just using her for a feed."

Gracie's grey eyes stared at her stepbrother, "Does she know…? I mean did he tell her about _us_?"

Peter knew what Gracie meant by _us_…the nightworld, where your nightmares really did exist.

"She's oblivious…I don't think he told her. He just fed from her," Peter felt like he was justifying Joseph Hannah's actions.

A flurry of emotions stirred in her. He had only used Harri to feed, but that was two promises broken in one day. Two promises that she had made him make to her. Two promises that should have been unnecessary. Two promises he should have kept without making them.

"And that makes it alright does it?" She didn't understand what made him think he could do such a thing. "Does having fangs mean you can just ignore promises and morals?"

"I dunno Gracie, I'm not a vampire. Don't take this out on me," Peter told her.

Gracie's hand went to her cheek; she felt a wetness there. She was crying again…. how many tears had she spilled for him? How many times had she cried because of him? She had lost count.

"Goddess Pete, I'm so sorry," Gracie apologised for her anger, and she got up and ran out of the rec room.

~*~

Something tingled between them; Harri thought it was fear making her skin spark. He looked so fearsome. Danger shrouded him in a glowing cloak.

Everything changed around her, her posters became a swirling golden sky, and Harri had the odd sensation that she wasn't in her bedroom any more. She felt like she wasn't even in reality anymore.

Harriet Miller was still paralysed by those eyes. In this smouldering world of golden fire she was still frozen, the heat rose from all around her and he was looking at her. Looking at her with despise etched upon his face.

"Just fucking brilliant," were the first words she heard out of his mouth. They sounded slightly hysterical, Harri felt she that she shouldn't be here. That she shouldn't be here in _this_ place. 

The angel of vengeance laughed and Harri was more scared than she was before, if that was even possible.

"Wha-what is this?" she ventured. She looked up at the swirling sky. Everything was gold, the exact same colour as Ari's angry sorrowful eyes. 

"Irony," the golden boy answered, apparently happy to sit on the smoky ground. He lent back on his arms, his head cocked to the side, studying her intently.

Confusion swelled all around her, it pressed against her, a fog smothering her. 

Ari laughed again, the bitterness made the atmosphere warmer. "We're soulmates."

Harri looked at him. What the hell was going on here? First he was in her bedroom and now they were in this golden fiery world that got warmer with his tainted laughter and he was telling her that they were soulmates?

Ari read the look on her face. He didn't want to be true either. "I'm your soulmate," the words sounded foreign, and wrong. Very _very_ wrong. 

"My _what_?"

"Soulmate." Ari looked up at her with his burning eyes.

"You said that, but what does it mean? And why are we here? And where is here?" Harri glanced around; the sky was changing. The burning gold was merging with a woody green colour.

"It's a belief that my people have," Ari stood up. Unconsciously Harri stepped away. The way he had moved so fast in her room still in her memory.

"Your people?" the reference didn't make sense. Ari looked exactly like any other person of Anglo-Saxon background, he didn't look like he belonged to any tribe of indigenous people.

Ari sighed again. He didn't want any of this, but this was what the fates had dealt out. The old powers were rising, and some consequences were definitely dire.

"My people…nightpeople. I'm a shapeshifter," he watched for disbelief, fear or hysteria. Her hazel eyes widened then she glanced around her.

"I'm dreaming," her denial injured him for some reason. Her denial injured him because he didn't want it to be true either. He didn't want to be connected to her; he didn't want to be connected to the enemy of his love.

"Nope, 'fraid not," he told her. Bitterness remained in his voice, "It's all real…down to the very last yellow cloud."

Harri stared at him. He couldn't be serious…could he? "You're joking right? I have to be dreaming. How else can you explain this?"

Ari resisted the urge to roll his eyes at her; of course she didn't believe him. She had been raised among a society that was ignorant of the monsters that remained hidden under the bed, and behind closet doors.

"Well, I could start by telling you that I'm an eagle shapeshifter and I belong to a race of people called night people," Ari stated, sarcasm and disapproval made their way into his voice and he knew that he had a patronising look on his face. He couldn't help it; he loathed the girl that the fates had decided to bind him to.

Harri stared. The sarcasm flowed into her; she knew that somehow it was coming from Ari. "You're crazy."

 "We have a society called the Nightworld," Ari ignored her. "There really are shapeshifters, witches and vampires. They're not just myths and nightmares…where do you think the myths came from? Human beings' over active imaginations?" Ari explained. He felt dirty telling her. She didn't deserve to know…she didn't deserve to still be breathing, but Ari knew that he couldn't do what he'd originally planned. 

She was his soulmate.

Harri fell in heap, as if the coldly delivered information was too much for her to comprehend.  She glared up at Ari's golden eyes as he stood over her. There was nothing comforting in those eyes, eyes that still hated her, eyes that told her that this changed nothing. 

"I don't know…it's not true…it can't be true!" the words tumbled out. She had no control. It was too much. It couldn't be true. Ari was insane…he thought he was a shapeshifter…a _shapeshifter_.

"Trust me," Ari told her scathingly, "It's not like I wanted to tell you."

Harri bit the inside of her lip. He didn't want this either. He didn't want to tell her his secret or be thrown into this golden brown world.

"What does all this mean?" the question sounded vaguely rational. Harri was breathing deeply, she didn't want to know this. It had to be a dream. There was no way it could be true. Shapeshifters existing?

"It means," he answered, "you live."

Confusion smothered her again. She didn't like the way he had said that. 

"Believe me Harri, I don't care if you are the other part of my soul. I do not want anything to do with you," the cold words cut her. Cut her as she felt herself drawn to him, felt the need to prove to him that she wasn't what he thought she was. There was only one problem. She knew what he thought she was. All of a sudden the thoughts ambushed her, as if they had been planning it all along. Planning to bring her to this strange place and whip her with their harshness. The saddest thing was, she was all of those things. She was manipulative, selfish, cold, evil, immoral, dishonest, callous, unloving, sociopathic, and most of all jealous. All of those things described her. Every last adjective fit and there was nothing…not one tiny thing she could do to deny it.

"Don't you dare come near me," Ari had seen that she meant to go to him. Something was forcing her to go to him and try and make him understand, but he already understood. 

"I…" whatever she had been about to say died on her lips as translucent figures appeared in their midst.

"Don't you dare come near me!" the words were wailed and fear drenched every syllable.

A woman…no it was girl appeared. It was a girl not much older than herself; pale silvery hair was restrained in a loose plait. Strands falling as she backed away in terror.

"Please, just leave us alone…" the girl begged her tawny eyes beseeching. Two men stood above her while a third was holding a golden-eyed boy by the shoulders.

The men had mesmerising eyes…they reminded her of mercury. Quicksilver points in the darkness.

"You told them…you knew the rules and still you told them," the taller of the men shook a finger at the girl. The man had a taunting tone to his voice.

Suddenly a wall appeared. The girl was flat against it, "you should have known better."

The man approached her and pressed himself flat against her slight body. The sound of clothes ripping filled the air and a scream erupted from the boy's throat as he struggled more violently with his captor.

"Don't watch," the words shook her out of the vision. Ari was pulling her arm, pulling her out of the scene and the distressed screams of the girl as she made sounds in agony. "Please," Ari's voice begged her turning her towards him, so she didn't see what was happening to the girl against the wall. "Once was enough…I don't want to witness it again."

Harri looked into his tearful golden eyes, they were the same eyes that had belonged to the boy in the vision. "He was you…god."

Ari shook his head as if he was saying 'no' to everything. Saying no to everything in the whole damned world. 

"Who was the girl?"

"It doesn't matter anymore," Ari replied. It was true. It didn't matter anymore. His sister was dead. Her blood spilled on that night and all that had participated in her murder were dead. Harri didn't need to know anything about her or his past; he didn't need her pity or her concern. Not that he'd been aware she had any. She shouldn't be his soumate, she shouldn't be the one connected to him forever. She couldn't possibly be the other half of him. 

Harri didn't believe a word he had uttered, "You're lying…she was someone to you."

"Why thank you Captain Obvious," Ari sneered. He never wanted to relive that moment again in his life. Why had she drawn that out of him? Why were the Old Powers demanding things of him to be mixed with the hazel-eyed brunette before him? 

"Look, I don't know if I should believe you about the whole nightworld-soulmate thing…I still think this a half dream, but I definitely don't believe that the girl doesn't matter anymore."

Ari wiped away whatever tears had flowed, and eyes hardened again. She wished he would stop looking at her like that. Like she was some sort of monster to be despised and disposed of.

"You don't have to."

Harri watched him; he was so very close to her, yet so far away. She could see that he believed that what ever was happening was a mistake.

"You're wrong."

Ari didn't say anything. There was nothing to say.

~*~

Gracie stared at her red puffy eyes in the mirror. The warm salty tears left paths down her cheeks. She blew her nose with some toilet paper. She wanted out, out of the Circle Daybreak Centre where she had been imprisoned, out of her relationship with Joseph. It wasn't working and she doubted it ever would. Gracie dried her eyes, wiping away the liquid signs of pain. 

Her reflection showed a teenage girl, whose grey eyes had shed too many tears for one boy. She turned on the faucet. The running water rushed over hands as she cupped them to capture the clear liquid. She threw it over her face, letting it refresh her and clear her thoughts. She lent back into a warm mass of living flesh, and fingers glided over her midriff, the soulmate link flared.

"You blew it," she would not be tempted to overlook his broken promises. She looked into the mirror and stared at those deep blue eyes. So much beauty in them but they hid a heart that didn't know how to feel. 

"I know," no remorse, no guilt. It was a simple statement, a fact not to be argued with. Joseph didn't smile. He just looked at the girl he held in his arms, their reflection a picture of two people who seemed to fit.

"That's it?" Gracie turned in his arms, her forearms resting on his chest, as if she would push him away. "Why do you bother to make promises when you break them so easily? You blocked the link. I don't like the girl obviously, but damn it Joseph you don't feed off of humans unwillingly…you don't treat people the way you do."

Blue eyes bored into grey. Joseph let go of his soulmate turning of the running water. "Save water."

Gracie raised an eyebrow. "Save water? Is that all you've got to say?"

~Look, I'm not going to argue with you again. You've made your decision~

Disgust came over Gracie's features.

~For what it matters I didn't block it. ~

"What do you mean you didn't block the link?" Gracie's brows were furrowed. Sadness and rejection was present in the way Joseph stood, the lamia vampire lent against the bench. He was so close to the door, Gracie felt like she was going to lose him. She knew that she wouldn't be able to live if she lost him, but she couldn't live like this.

"I mean I didn't block the link. I kept the promise about not blocking the link."

Gracie stared at him. His perfectly sculptured face pouting in unhappiness, the way he casually leant against the vanity bench. He was a picture perfect vampire. Her picture perfect vampire and he was telling her the truth. There was no way he could lie to Gracie without her knowing.

"My God, it's true," Gracie breathed in, "Then why…"

Joseph stood up and went to her. He was so much taller than her. A hand reached out and brushed her cheek; the soulmate connection bristled between them.

~I don't know, ~ His lips brushed hers delicately. She pushed his hand down. 

~This isn't going to work, ~

Joseph pulled away, "God Gracie. Don't do this to me."

Gracie's eyes widened, "Don't do this to you? For fuck's sake Joseph I still love you. I will always love you, but I can't do this anymore. The way you treat me…you don't treat me any differently than you treat Harriet Miller or any other girl. You mess with me and then expect me to be all right?" pause, "I'm not the one playing with people."

Joseph tried to hold her furious gaze, but he had to look away. "I don't know why the Old Powers put us together, I don't know what happened today. Yes I fed from Harriet Miller, she's just another vermin, but I don't ever treat you like any other girl. I've never fed from you, even when you offered. I've never done any of the things I did to any of the girls in my past to you. You're my soulmate and I don't know exactly how to cope with that."

A dark chocolate haired head popped into the toilets, "Gracie are you alright?"

"Just peachy Ursula," Gracie told the bear-shifter who had rudely interrupted them.

"It's just that we heard voices, and we didn't know that there was anyone else in here with you," the brunette was fully in the toilets now, and Gracie could tell she was surveying the situation.

"Well, aren't you guys just great watchdogs…hate to break to you but Joseph here isn't invisible or microscopic. Now go. I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" Ursula Helarctos asked. She looked like she was about to take on Joseph.

"Leave."

Gracie watched as the young shapeshifter woman backed out of the toilets. She heard the door click shut and went over to lock it. "Well I've never had one before either."

Joseph's sapphire eyes said nothing as he just stared at her. 

"Why did you have to feed off of Harriet Miller?" Gracie wanted answers, she wanted peace, but he was sending emotions to her, hurt, regret, love…oh he was doing it again. Manipulating her with the soulmate link. "Stop using it as a weapon."

"I couldn't feel you anymore, I felt free," the emotions still poured through the connection as Joseph ignored her command, "I felt like I used to, before this. I don't know…I just wanted to relive that I guess. Harri was just so accommodating."

Gracie shook her head. She didn't know what to do. She longed to be able to ignore everything. It was true what they said. "Ignorance is bliss."

Joseph's eyes narrowed in confusion, "Ignorance is bliss?" she didn't really just say that did she?

"Yes. Ignorance is bliss," Gracie repeated, "There is nothing more I want to do than ignore everything."

She reached out to take his hand; he flinched but let her hold it. ~You're the only one who can do this to me, ~ her fingers twined with his. ~I need us to be put on hold. ~

"So it was true, you don't want me anymore," the words cut deeper than any knife could have. They sliced through the beginnings of Joseph's heart.

"It's not that I don't want you," Gracie smiled up at him, "I do want you. I just don't want to cry anymore."

Joseph blinked, "We're breaking up?" Joseph felt something die within him, he couldn't change, that was the hidden meaning in her actions. "I didn't think that soulmates could break up."

"They can't but couples can. I think we should stop seeing each other," Gracie felt dizzy, his emotions were still pouring into her, but she wasn't going to relent. He was everything to her, but it was better off this way. Better off to be separated then feel this pain, anger, and betrayal. Oh, she knew he would have another girl within the week, but she wouldn't mean anything to him. She would turn into a green monster when that happened and jealous would fill her again, but he wouldn't break any more promises to her. 

Joseph couldn't argue with her, he wanted to. He wanted to shake her and tell her that he needed her. 

"You can go back to your old world," Gracie told him, and it sounded like a forbidden whisper. Joseph wasn't sure that was what he wanted. He wanted to live in a world where he could live up to her expectations. He wanted to be with her, but he knew that he couldn't. They had been dancing on thin ice, since the first moment they had touched. Since the first moment their world had sparkled and he had accosted her with 'what the hell did you do to me you stupid witch?'

"What if I don't want to?" he had changed, if only a little bit. He didn't want to be what he was, he wanted many things, but he didn't want that. He didn't want to walk down the street and have people flinch at the sight of him. That no longer gave him joy.

"I don't know. Dad suggested counselling, maybe you could talk to Boss," Gracie sighed. It was finally over.

"Is this because of Harri?" Joseph ventured, he needed a reason, someone or something solid to blame. He wasn't happy, there had to be something…something he could do to.

"Look Joseph, it doesn't matter anymore," Gracie went to the door. There was a click as she unlocked it and slipped out.

Joseph looked into the mirror, his blue eyes piercing themselves.

~*~
    
    _I may be scattered,_
    
    _A little shattered,_
    
    _What does it matter?_
    
    _No one has a fit like I do,_
    
    _I may be scattered,_
    
    _A little shattered,_
    
    _What does it matter?_
    
    _No one has a fit like I do,_
    
    _I'm the only one that fits you_


	9. Chapter IX: An Interlude

TITLE: Green

  
DISCLAIMER: Nightworld concepts belong to LJ Smith. Characters belong to me…ask if in the unlikely event that any take your fancy and you want to use them.

  
SUMMARY:  "…Joseph would never use her like he had used other girls. He had never fed from her and never would unless she let him. Harri's name entered her mind unbidden; Harri was with her soulmate right now. Harri who's innocent smile made Gracie want to slash the girl's throat with a nice sharp and pointy kitchen knife…."

Gracie Bismarck always knew that her relationship with her soulmate Joseph Hannah wouldn't be easy, but she never expected so many humans to get in her way.

WARNING: As you may have noticed from Chapter VI I like to use all of my English vocabulary…unfortunately this means that some words classified as 'swear,' words are used, simply because I'm not a saint and don't have the literary skill to imply that a character has used these words without actually stating what they are…sorry if this offends anyone.

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Old Penguin: Gracie, peace? Yeah she really does deserve some, but then she wouldn't be a main character, as for Joseph he's a strange one. I'll grant that much and a shake just might make him angry. Ari and Harri was something I admit I planned it from the beginning…there was always the how though. Thanks so much for the compliment and thanks so much for reading and reviewing. 

Sharmeen: The last chapter's events do present some problems in the plot department but I'll deal. I had always planned for the Harri and Ari to be soulmates but I hadn't always planned on Joseph being such an arse. (He's a pain to write because whenever I think I have him figured out, I decide he has emotions) He was actually meant to be based on one of my friends who's nothing like him…go figure. I think Ari turned out more like my friend…  Thank you so much for telling me what I'm doing right. Yay! Now all you have to do is tell me what I'm doing terribly wrong… Thanks again for your reviews.

Terriah: Thanks for reviewing. Glad you liked it.

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CHAPTER IX:

Peter sat in the rec room, staring at the impressions in the couch his stepsister had left. Gracie wasn't the same anymore. Peter couldn't believe how much had happened in two days, it had to have been building up, but why did it have to explode?

Peter sighed and switched on the television, the screen flew to life, and _Home and Away's _theme song burst into sound. He looked at the screen, the false drama not soothing him when a real one danced around him. He always felt like an observer in this strange place, as if he was the one watching all the beautiful nightpeople going about their business and he was the one stuck in some sort of perverse Perspex cube. Peter felt out of place. He wasn't born into this world, he was put here, a piece in the jigsaw puzzle that didn't quite fit.

Rosie Willow waltzed into the rec room, the lamia girl plopping herself next to the human.

"Heya Pete," the greeting was cheery, and Peter wondered why the girl wasn't out tracking her elusive partner. 

"Hi Rosie."

"Seen Gracie?" 

"Yeah a little while ago," Peter told her, "I managed to upset her more."

"Oh, how?" Peter didn't look at the vampire. He didn't belong here. He didn't belong on the couch sitting next to this exquisite inhuman creature. He didn't belong to the secrets these deadly beautiful people lived with. He didn't belong in the Circle Daybreak centre. This wasn't his place. He had no reason to linger here, nothing. No tie that demanded his stay. Sure Gracie was his stepsister, but she was only his _step_sister. She wasn't blood, no matter the friendship between them.

"I told her I saw Hannah with Harriet Miller," Peter answered. Reaching for the remote control to change the channel, the actor's antics on screen boring him. 

"Goddess," Rosie gasped, amazed at the human's actions. Did he want to cause his stepsister more pain? "Why'd you tell her?"

"I had to," Peter answered, pausing on the music channel. "Hannah said the Harriet didn't mean anything to him, was just a fast food restaurant."

Rosie wrinkled her brows. She was confused, "That's not any reason tell her. She's torn up enough with out adding that."

Peter faced the inhuman girl beside him. Her dark brown eyes searched his face, trying to find a clue to what was bothering him. "I know. I just thought she had right to know how he saw things."

Rosie looked at the boy sitting beside her. He was the same age as her. His slightly tanned skin would age, and soon he would become older, but that didn't change things. Rosie would always be eighteen. She had stopped her ageing, but she wondered what it would be like to age like a human. "Not all vampires see humans as walking talking fast food restaurants."

"Sometimes it doesn't seem like it," he answered. Oh sure, she could say that, yeah Rosie was able to say that there was some good in her species, but Peter didn't know. Rosie Willow was the only vampire he had ever met that didn't have an overpowering arrogance about them. Joseph Hannah had his I'm-badder-than-you thing going on while Boss as kindly as she was, looked down at him. Boss Cedars had condescendingly allowed Peter to stay the night in the centre. Any other vampire he had met had dismissed him. He was human, and therefore insignificant. 

"Hannah's only one vampire, don't judge the rest of us because of what he does," Rosie defended her kind. She was used to prejudice. It was everywhere, even deep within the bowels of Circle Daybreak, but she had considered Peter a friend. Now she was defending herself against him. "You know Daybreak's policy."

"Yeah well, it seems Hannah's having a little trouble adjusting," Peter remarked. Turning back to his channel surfing. 

"Why are you so bitter?" the question came unbidden. 

"I'm not bitter," Peter denied. No, he wasn't bitter just out of place. He was a freak, a human, in a place where the supernatural thrived.

"I don't need to be a telepath to sense that you're bitter," Rosie told him, leaning back into her side of the couch. She relaxed slightly. Peter was broadcasting his insecurities; she knew that he didn't hate her in particular. He just felt irrelevant amongst the monsters. "You know that you are one of us right? It doesn't matter whether or not you're nightworld. You're a Daybreaker, that's the whole point."

"Why'd you join?" Peter stared at the television, willing it to swallow him whole. There was nothing he could do, he couldn't help Gracie, he couldn't do anything. All he could do was sit here, in a rec room in a Circle Daybreak centre having a conversation with a renegade nightworld vampire. Yeah, Peter was useless.

Rosie sighed; the memories of her past flowed back. Her running through alleyways, Rosie Willow may have come from a good vampire home, but she had taunted danger and one-day danger lost it. "I got into trouble as a kid," Rosie smiled, "I was from a traditional family, you know the type. Arrogant, think that world is their hunting ground." Rosie watched the television screen that had so engrossed Peter. "Anyway, my parents they cared, but not nearly enough to stop me from doing things I shouldn't. I won't lie to you Pete. I used to be a hell of a lot like Hannah. It took some serious arse kicking from CD agents to make me what I am." Rosie sighed again, "I got caught in some illegal business by some CD agents when I was fifteen. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse and I ended up here, working for them."

"So you gave up all your old allegiance because they made you an offer you couldn't refuse?" Peter snorted. He was unimpressed by her story.

"No, I didn't. It took a lot to get me from a snotty vampire brat to what I am now," Rosie got defensive again "I would have been in a massive amount of trouble if my district elders caught me. The CD agents blackmailed me. I little to no choice, face the elders' punishment or join CD and get off virtually scotch free. The elders would have been much more bloody in their punishment than Circle Daybreak. Yeah, I was blackmailed to join, but I like it here now."

Peter turned off the television. "Whatever okay?"

"What is your problem Haywood? As far as I know you have no reason to be so anti-vamp."

"I just don't trust anything with fangs," Peter got up.

Rosie changed. She didn't know how to make him realise that he mattered. That he was a really person in this dangerous world he had been introduced to. She felt her canines elongating. "Look at me."

Peter turned back around to face her. Her inhuman beauty shone brightly, and Peter breathed in. 

"This is part of who I am, but it's not all of me," Rosie changed back, her teeth ached to feed, but she ignored it. This was slightly more important. "You're human, but you're not inferior, and you do belong here."

Peter stared at her still, "Then why the hell do I feel like I don't?"

~*~

Ari watched her; she was crouching behind a wooden fence. The slats were littered with splinters that wanted to embed themselves into skin.

It was an apparition of course. The real Harriet Miller stood beside him, motionless watching the translucent scene play out before them.

"Ready or not here I come!" the cry sailed through the air carrying all the laughter and joy of a seven year old with it.

The seven-year-old Harri bore a huge smile on her face. Hazel eyes gleaming with joy, steps thudded on the grass and Harri squirmed into an even smaller shape.

"Harri, where are you?"

Harri remained crouched, listening intently. 

"Harri?"

The steps got closer and all Ari could hear was the seven-year-old Harri breathing. 

"Found ya!" the yell came from a short little chocolate haired Peter Haywood. The eight-year-old giggled at the furiously indignant look on the seven-year-old Harri.

"You cheated," Harri stated matter-of-factly, as if it was the truest thing in the world.

The apparition faded and Ari watched the seventeen-year-old Harriet Miller standing next to him. 

The brunette stayed motionless. "How much longer do we have to do this?"

Ari burned at the question. Did she imagine that he liked watching memories being played out before him, especially when they were his own haunting and bloody ones?

"Have you tried getting out of here?" Ari asked, his golden eyes narrowing. She shook just a little, and Ari released a smile.

"I don't know how."

"Try anything," Ari suggested. Was he going to stuck in this place forever? It was bad enough he was linked with her.

"I heard that," Harri snapped. She felt exhausted; the memories that had drifted out of them were draining. She had seen so much of Ari that it made her shiver at the thought of what he could do. The weirdest thing was that she could hear his thoughts: things that she was so sure never intended to grace another person's eardrums.

"I've heard every little thing you've thought too, if it makes you feel any better," Ari glared at the brunette. Why did it have to be her? He didn't care if she heard him. He had seen the little child that had lain within Harriet Miller grow up through her memories. He was sickened by the things Harri had done as a child. Plotting to get her younger sister grounded, manipulating her parents into buying her something far too expensive, knowing that they couldn't afford it. Then there was the worst of it; the things Harri had done since then. Harriet Miller was very aware of how people worked.

Harri wanted to slap him, but wouldn't dare. She too had seen what Ari had done when he was younger, and the fact that he had the ability to kill a man with his bare hands made her very wary of the golden-eyed boy. 

"It doesn't," Harri replied, she wanted to wake up from this place. Wake up and find it was all a dream. She had a feeling _that_ wasn't something that was going to happen anytime soon.

The sound of waves crashing on a shoreline reached her ears. Harri turned to face another memory from her past. The mischievous murmurs of the couple before her echoed her ears and she flushed red.

Ari glanced at her, the disgust in his golden eyes unwavering. The couple before her drew apart and Harri knew whom she would see. Joseph Hannah still had a hand tracing patterns at the small of her back. She remembered how they had filled her with pleasure, but now she was suddenly embarrassed. Ari raised an eyebrow at her. She looked away. She didn't want to see his opinion of her drop lower. Although, she thought, for it drop any lower it would have to bypass the depths of hell and keep on going. 

Joseph began nuzzling at her neck, and the memory vanished violently as if it had never been.

Ari stared at her. The look in those golden eyes changed. Harri was glad, finally there was something else beside despise and loathing. There was pity in those eyes and the whisper of not forgiveness, but pardon. As he was letting her off for the crime she had committed. Oh, he would not forgive her, nor would he forget. Ari went towards her, and stopped. Reaching out with a hand to feel her neck. His touch sent prickles through her; it was like nothing she had ever felt before. She closed her eyes as he dragged his fingers down and across her neck, feeling for something. His hand drew away and Harri opened her eyes.

Light hurtled its way into her eyes, Harri blinked. She was crouched, her back pressed against her bedroom door. Her forearms lent heavily on Ari's knees, he was somehow entwined with her, "Why the hell are you in my bedroom?"

"I came here to kill you," Ari replied disentangling himself. His eyes still burnt her as she slid to floor.

Harri believed him, the murderous flash in his eyes before her dream was very real. "God, it's true isn't it? All of that was real."

Ari nodded sagely. Half glad that she didn't try to deny it. "Look, I need to tell you something about Hannah."

"Whatever it is, it doesn't matter," Harri was shaking; the knowledge her subconscious bestowed upon her was too much. It was okay to believe in shapeshifters and soulmates and stuff when you were dreaming, but that wasn't a dream. "Fuck, it can't be true."

"Harri stop deluding yourself," he snarled at her. He didn't want to go through all the crap that had happened in the swirling gold place again. "It's all true, we're soulmates, I'm a shape shifter, Joseph Hannah's a vampire, and he fed from you."

Harri looked up at him, he hazel eyes widening. Joseph? A vampire? No, that couldn't be true. None of it was true. "No way."

Ari rolled his eyes, what would he have to go through to persuade her that he was indeed telling the truth. "Think about it Harri, he fed from you. I don't want to know what else you guys did, but admit it to yourself. He used you for your blood."

"How do you know?" Harri was confused. Too much had happened. Everything seemed surreal. Ari's golden presence was unnerving and she began to feel dizzy. Everything was too much.

Ari refused to let a smug smile creep across his features. He knew it was wrong to take pleasure in Harri's confusion, but it was the only thing that made him feel better about the situation. Harri had less of an idea about what was going on than he did.

"Nightworlder," the word sounded as if a d-uh should follow it.

~*~

The number was scrawled across the paper. Blank ink marring the pale white scrap. Joseph looked at it. Should he? Oh he knew that _she_ wouldn't care anymore, but there was something stopping him. He wanted to change didn't he? He wanted to become something that would be respected by those who knew respect was not fear.

He had talked to Boss. The woman had looked weary. Boss had smiled at him with understanding and compassion, but it all seemed false to him. Why would Circle Daybreak want to help him, Joseph Hannah? Joseph closed his eyes. The darkness of his flat surrounded him, another gift from Circle Daybreak, a gift of somewhere to live. Somewhere where he was supposed to change, but change into what?

Joseph knew he wasn't caterpillar to morph into a beautiful and resplendent butterfly. He was something else. Some darker, something that had never seen the light, but Gracie was his light and he had been drawn to her, a helpless moth to the flame. He wondered if Gracie had burnt him, burnt him with goodness.

He sighed, the number was so tempting, and he knew that Harri wouldn't refuse him…couldn't refuse him. Harriet Miller was just as fascinated by him as he was by her. Joseph lashed out, indecision frustrating him. He knew what he had to do. So why was he faltering? The glass he hit skipped across the kitchen bench, shattering on the kitchen tiles. The sound of glass shattering vibrated through the tiny flat. Joseph closed his eyes. He didn't need this. He needed _her_. He needed her support, her love, her belief that he could change, and he didn't have it. He had nothing. All he had was two numbers, one for a girl who would adore him and reopen the gates to his old world and one for a middle-aged man who specialised in counselling troubled nightworlders, somehow neither were appealing. 

The phone glinted in the darkness; it's whiteness somehow glowing in the dim kitchen. Joseph stared at it. He knew he should do something, anything. This was where he would make profound life changing decision, but it seemed so mundane. So ordinary, weren't these moments meant to have some sort of startling clarity? Joseph's fingers closed on the smooth handset. It would be so easy; it was like stealing candy from a baby, he had no idea how to shut the damn kid up afterwards. 

The dial tone echoed in his ears, and slowly he dialled the number.

~*~


	10. Chapter X: What Can I Do?

TITLE: Losing Grace formerly titled Green

DISCLAIMER: Nightworld concepts belong to LJ Smith. Characters belong to me…ask if in the unlikely event that any take your fancy and you want to use them. SUMMARY: "…Joseph would never use her like he had used other girls. He had never fed from her and never would unless she let him. Harri's name entered her mind unbidden; Harri was with her soulmate right now. Harri who's innocent smile made Gracie want to slash the girl's throat with a nice sharp and pointy kitchen knife…." 

Gracie Bismarck always knew that her relationship with her soulmate Joseph Hannah wouldn't be easy, but she never expected so many humans to get in her way.

WARNING: As you may have noticed from Chapter VI I like to use all of my English vocabulary…unfortunately this means that some words classified as 'swear,' words are used, simply because I'm not a saint and don't have the literary skill to imply that a character has used these words without actually stating what they are…sorry if this offends anyone.

NOTE: I changed the tittle…I didn't think Green suited it much…but anyhow still the same story.

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Sorry for any inconvenience, last time I check on this story the chapter didn't end where I though it did….so I'm updating Chapter 10 again….make sure you get to last scene with Ari and Harri…that means it worked..

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CHAPTER X

Ari watched his soulmate pace. She was pacing back and forward. It was strange and reminded him of the caged tigers at the zoo, but Harriet Miller was no tigress.

Harriet Miller was human.

For all of her nightworld conscience she couldn't change that. The fact that Harri destroyed her friendships willy-nilly, and manipulated people constantly, didn't make her anymore nightworld than the next human.

Ari wondered if he was disappointed. He got a human, not a nightworlder. Not someone who would understand the secrets. He got someone who would reject what had been hidden from them all their life. He had got someone who would reject him. Ari shook his head. No, that wasn't right. He was the one already rejecting her. She was abhorrent, detestable and utterly immoral. Besides there was Gracie... Gracie who had lived in his heart for so long. He was not going to let her be shoved aside by the manipulative tigress that passed in front of him. The air tingled as he felt her body heat pass. He knew that wasn't normal. It wasn't right. Harri should not be the one to do that to him. Gracie should be.

He loved Gracie.

The words he had spoken to Boss echoed in his mind 'Soulmates aren't always meant for each other.' Ari shook his head. God, he didn't know how to deal with this. He didn't know how Gracie had coped with Joseph Hannah for the three months she had known about him. He had only just found out that Harri was his soulmate three hours ago, and he had no idea how he was going to deal with it.

Harri looked up at him. Ari realised that she could hear him. Hear his thoughts, and his uncertainties. Ari looked away. He didn't want to see the crushed sadness in her eyes. He knew it would be there, he could feel how his thoughts were affecting her. He felt the rush of determination that swept her frame. She would prove to him that she was decent. Ari wanted to laugh, how could she prove that?

"Christ, Ari, you think I know? I don't know why I care so much about your opinion of me, I never did before…" Anger raged in her, it was mixing with the determination. Melding with it, turning it in to molten lava stubbornness.

It stung him, oh everything him stung him. He knew that maybe he should just leave it. Let it be. Nothing good could come of it.

"You're right," Harri told him, anger and stubbornness burning in her throat. How dare he think that nothing good could come of this? The furious indignant look came over her face, and Ari was struck by how much she looked like the seven year old memory. He could almost hear her cry 'you cheated!' A wry smile crawled over his lips. Oh, it was amazing, truly amazing.

"Look, I just think that we're not meant to be together. Or at least, we're not meant to be together right now." We're too young, the thought whispered in his mind, too young…too young for what? Too young for love? Too young to work out our differences? The word love sent revulsion through him. He could never love her, he didn't even think he could bring himself to like her, but he couldn't argue with the Old Powers. There had to be a reason they were put together, a very unfathomable reason, but still a reason.

Harri sighed, she agreed. It was too sudden, too rare, and way too bizarre. "I just don't know how to cope with…well, everything."

Ari stared at her; neither of them knew how to cope. Or was that just his helplessness being transmitted into her? He hardly knew where he ended and she began. It was too much. "Well that makes two of us," Ari sighed. He couldn't deal with this. Maybe he should just go on with his original plan. Kill her and leave. He could never go back and face Gracie now, not that he had ever really intended to. The girl who stood before him had caused so much damage to the witch he loved. Harri had crossed the edge of the map and was in a place where Dragons be.

The girl had finally stopped pacing was staring at him with the same intensity his eyes held. He knew that it was the link between them that was doing this. After all, he could never lose himself in her eyes. Harri's eyes were deep, but had the dark murky brown-green that turbid water had. He did not want to drown in her eyes; he did not want to be pulled under by the mesmerising link that hummed between them, the link that made him feel like he was betraying Gracie, like he was betraying himself.

"No," he whispered, the word a ghost on his thin curving lips. He felt her fingers trail across his cheekbones, and he shivered. This was not right.

"Shhh," Harri whispered. She seemed as if she was in a trance, unable to wake from the deep magick that had come over her.

Ari stepped away, sensing the assurance the link wanted to pour into him, the comfort that she was being made to give. He didn't want this. He should just leave. Leave forever.

Her other hand reached out, searching for his hand, wanting to enclose his palm in hers. He moved it away; he was not going to be apart of this.

"Harriet," Ari tried to reach her verbally. Snapping her out of her thrall. Her hazel eyes focused and disappointment coursed through them.

Ari flinched. He didn't want to be made to feel every emotion she felt, he didn't want this heightened awareness of her.

"Is there anyway to get rid of this?" Harri asked, tears welling in her eyes. The link manipulated him. He went to her; he could no longer suffer her emotions. Their skin lit up as their forearms touched. Ari tried to ignore it. He wondered if the feeling would ever go away. Harri moulded to his arms, and sobbed. Ari was startled by the way she fitted so snugly against his body. He rubbed her back, trying everything he could to stop her from feeling these depressing emotions. She looked up at him, her hands cupping his. Ari couldn't look away, physical contact made him powerless, and he was sure she knew this.

"What can I do to make you not despise me?"

* * *

Gracie found her stepbrother. He looked disturbed, and angry. Gracie wondered why. Ursula had so kindly escorted her back to the rec room. Gracie wanted to hex the 'shifter, but knew better than to mess with an agent, especially an agent who had Shade Garland as a comrade and friend. Peter looked up at her as she sat in an armchair. She wanted to be alone, but she felt safer around someone. She wasn't quite sure if what she did was right. Was it an insult to the Old Powers if one rejected one's soulmate?

She sighed and her stepbrother looked up, a sullen look in his brown eyes. He didn't say anything. Just stared at her, no, he didn't stare at her. He stared _through_ her. It was as if he wasn't seeing anything.

"Have they found Ari?" Gracie questioned him; she didn't want to think about the blue eyes that she knew as well as her own. She didn't want to feel guilty about going against the Powers. She knew that what she had done was right for her, but was it right for him?

"No," Peter replied to her verbalised question coldly. He wasn't the boy that had laughed and joked with Lily-May when they decided it would be fun to gang up on her. He wasn't even the protective stepsibling that had warned her against her soulmate.

"Oh," Gracie sighed. She was clam now. Everything was going to be all right. She had a deep-rooted anger at Harriet Miller, and that girl would get her 'just deserts' but she didn't feel like inflicting unbearable pain on the girl that had been her friend since primary school, right this moment.

"Rosie stopped by," the words sounded distant as if they weren't really sincere, but they weren't insincere either. They were just empty, devoid of what she wanted to hear from her older, slightly more mature stepbrother. Seven years was a long time, they had slowly accepted each other as a member of each other's family, as a member of each other's life. They had accepted each other's presence in their homes and their acceptance had forged a friendship, and now Gracie really did think of Peter Haywood as her brother, despite his human blood, and different surname. Pete was her brother, and she wouldn't forget what he had done for her over the years.

"Why wasn't she out looking for him?" Gracie asked. The empty conversation was keeping her mind away from the hum, away from the treacherous part of her that she would have to ignore if her and Joseph's separation were to succeed.

"Boss bumped her off," Peter had wondered the same thing. Ari Lindsay was Rosie's partner, wouldn't she know where to find him better than the rest of the CD agents?

Graci furrowed her brows. She had a strong disliking for that woman. Today's events were what started it. Before today Gracie had respect for Boss Cedars, even admiration, but not now. Now, Gracie wanted the vampire fired, striped of her rank, but Gracie couldn't do that. She was a civilian. Gracie wondered how Boss could lose all track of one her agents. Ari Lindsay was her friend if not today's saviour. How could Boss just lose him like that? Wouldn't an organisation like Circle Daybreak have a way to keep tabs on all of its agents?

"Bugger," Gracie sighed, she dug around the armchair she was sitting on. She felt a hard rectangular shape press into her buttocks. She found the remote control that had been thrown there in a moment of Peter's frustration.

"Yeah," Peter sighed, "What do you know about Rosie and Ari?" he asked, some form of emotion sparking in his voice.

Gracie looked at her eighteen year old stepbrother, "Oh not much, Ari's," well, what could she say about Ari. She didn't really know much about the golden-eyed shapeshifter apart from his physically features, his animal, and that he was a CD agent. "Distant most of the time," yeah, that was right. Ari Lindsay was mostly distant around her, despite the fact that he was constant presence. He was always there, a flash of lithe golden eyed and haired boy. He was always around the centre, around school, or the mall. Ari had always been in her life since she moved with her father to be with Phyllis. "and Rosie? She was a bad ass, now she's as Daybreaky as they come. She used to be a lacer. She used to lace humans' blood with drugs and sell them. She was a very rich fifteen year old when they brought her in"

Peter looked down at his hands, and Gracie wanted to know what was wrong with him. The humming was distracting her, or Peter was distracting her from the humming. Either way she knew she was being distracted.

Gracie heard soft pads come into the room and she looked up in to ice blue eyes, they were a lighter shade than Joseph's but they belonged to the same sort of creature. The angular cheekbones of Lincoln Chalcedony emanated annoyance.

"What do you want?" Gracie asked her 'bodyguard,' the trio's annoying presence outside the room and their shadowlike stalking of her was really beginning to irritate her. She wasn't going to hurt any one any more! At leas not tonight, she wouldn't hurt Harriet Miller until she came up with a sufficient curse that made the girl feel every inch of jealously and seething anger she had felt at the girl's casual advances on her soulmate. Oh, Gracie didn't care that she had broken up with Joseph; she still wanted to damage the source of all her suffering.

"I'm going home now," Lincoln pronounced, equally as irritated and annoyed. He did after all have better things to be doing than babysitting a witch that seemed to have little to no spunk about her. In fact his charge didn't seem at all like the vengeance-filled raging sorceress that Boss had painted so beautifully when assigning him to guard her tonight.

Gracie waved her hand at him, "run along now." That had brought her some vindictive pleasure, dismissing him so facetiously.

Lincoln glared at her, and Gracie smiled shrugging turning back to her stepbrother. He was tense; she could see how his muscles were locked in place to lunge. Gracie worried slightly; Peter was no match for the vampire who was walking out now as she spoke. " Pete, what's up with you?"

Peter just looked at her, ice in his warm brown eyes.

* * *

"What can I do to make you not despise me?"

Ari pushed her away. Harriet felt foreign emotions in the pit of her stomach. She knew that there was something wrong with this situation. She knew that he wanted her as much as she wanted to be dipped in boiling hot wax. The rush of emotions that had made her ask that question confused her. Why did she care about what Ari thought of her?

Harri knew that she didn't really care; her real self didn't want Ari Lindsay in her room. Her real self wanted Joseph Hannah to laugh and flirt with. Her real self didn't really want the fair haired angel of vengeance that was attempting to comfort her. Oh, Ari was alluring, she wouldn't deny that, and what he had explained to her in that golden world did explain a lot of things, but her real self couldn't believe it. She couldn't really believe that Ari was an eagle shifter or that Joseph was a vampire. She would find the fact that Ari was her soulmate hard to believe, except she had these overriding emotions mixing with her real ones and that she could hear and feel what Ari was thinking. It only left her with one conclusion.

Everything Ari had said was true.

She was pretty sure that this new knowledge changed her world. It would change the way she looked at people.

Ari commanded her attention. He managed to drop her hands. She felt relief in some small twisted way. It made her feel as if she had some remnants of control despite the fact that it had been Ari who had pulled away.

"I don't think you can do anything Harri," the words were so solemn, so definite. The link between them wanted to protest, wanted to try and convince him that there was something. The real Harri quelled it, accepted that she couldn't change is opinion. The real Harri didn't want to.

Harri sighed as she got up. She was going to be careful about looking into Ari's eyes. She had a feeling that this link was made stronger whenever they looked into each other's eyes, and she didn't want to make it stronger.

"So what do we do?" Harri asked. She had to have some plan of attack, some way to deal with what was happening between them.

"Ignore it," the answer was too simple. Harri nodded, how did you ignore something that was trying to mix you with another person. "It'll be hard, but we can and will ignore it. It doesn't change anything."

Harri nodded, her inner-self happy with Ari's incomplete solution. Yes, they would ignore it. After all, the link had to have been there throughout the entire time they had known each other. It wasn't apparent then, so why should it be now?


	11. Chapter XI:Regaining Bliss

* * *

TITLE: Losing Grace formerly titled Green

DISCLAIMER: Nightworld concepts belong to LJ Smith. Characters belong to me…ask if in the unlikely event that any take your fancy and you want to use them. SUMMARY: "…Joseph would never use her like he had used other girls. He had never fed from her and never would unless she let him. Harri's name entered her mind unbidden; Harri was with her soulmate right now. Harri who's innocent smile made Gracie want to slash the girl's throat with a nice sharp and pointy kitchen knife…." 

Gracie Bismarck always knew that her relationship with her soulmate Joseph Hannah wouldn't be easy, but she never expected so many humans to get in her way.

WARNING: As you may have noticed from Chapter VI I like to use all of my English vocabulary…unfortunately this means that some words classified as 'swear,' words are used, simply because I'm not a saint and don't have the literary skill to imply that a character has used these words without actually stating what they are…sorry if this offends anyone.

NOTE: I changed the tittle…I didn't think Green suited it much…but anyhow still the same story.

NOTE 2: Sorry if there are lots of mistakes but I have no time to proof read so…bear with them.

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Old Penguin: Yeah Green was the title of something I was playing around with when this saga developed, and Losing Grace hit me the other day and I was like yay that suits it so much better. Yeah it is a bit calm, I know it's kinda boring at the moment but you're right something is going to happen…and you'll find out who Joseph rings…I have no idea how long this is going to be…aiming for fifteen because I think I can finish it in fifteen but we'll see I thought I would finish it by ten…. I was wrong. I'm glad you like my characters…I try to make them realistic and well sometimes I think I fail but it's not really real finding out that vamps and 'shifters really exist. Anyhow thanks for the humongous review….and thanks for reading.

Terriah: I'm sure you're not as evil as Harri…besides Harri's not evil she's just, um…misled? Yeah that's it…Harri's just misled; she had no idea what she was up against till now. Hope you don't get offended by what Harri does since your name is Harrie for short. Glad you enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for reviewing.

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CHAPTER XI

Ari strode towards the darkened warehouse. Harriet Miller was running through his head. Not just thoughts of her, but her actual thoughts. It made him feel like he was slightly mad, and somehow he knew he was. He knew that it was going to be impossible to ignore it. Impossible to ignore the link that was binding them together by the minute. Still Ari had to try, he could never have feelings towards the brunette whom the Old Powers had decided he should be with.

Ari saw a figure waiting at the brown wooden door. He sighed; all he wanted to do was sleep. He would leave tomorrow. He didn't want to deal with anyone who would make him stay, and he knew Rosie would insist on him staying.

"You didn't do it," Rosie's voice cut the darkness. The dim streetlights barely illuminated his partner's face, but Ari could see and hear the concern that made her voice sway.

"What are you doing here?" Ari asked. He didn't want to have this conversation. He wanted to send her back to the CD centre. Send her back to her little box of a room in the agent's hall. Ari didn't want to hear the worry in her voice. He didn't want to hear her tell him that he should go back, absently he wondered how many agents had been sent out to find him.

"Looking for you," Rosie glared at him, her beautiful ethereal eyes chilling him to the bone.

"How many are there?" Ari didn't move, he knew Rosie's strength. He didn't want her to be able to capture him. He didn't want her to be able to bring him back.

"I don't know Ari, Boss bumped me," Rosie gave a short little laugh. The sound was cold and tinny. Ari remembered all the times he had shared with the vampiric girl before him, they had been exciting times, good times. Times when he didn't have a soulmate, times where he could love Gracie without consequences, even if he never told her. Yeah, he and Rosie had been through a lot. He didn't want her to be the one to drag him back in. He didn't trust what she had said. Boss wouldn't be stupid enough to bump of the only agent that had a chance to find him. Although Ari had begun to question his superior's intelligence. His ex-superior. Ari was leaving Circle Daybreak.

Ari stayed silent. He watched Rosie, her eyes bored in to his. She was waiting for something, he could tell by the way she stood. But what was it that she needed?

"They let Gracie out," the news vibrated trough him. Gracie was out. Would she be a danger to Harri? Ari remembered the way she had so adamantly told him that she would not regret carrying out revenge. The newfound fear was strange to him, why did he care if Harri survived the night? He was meant to be ignoring the link that made him feel these things. Ignoring the way she wandered through his mind with nonchalant ignorance.

"How is she?"

Rosie smiled at him. The canines hidden behind curved lips. "I didn't see her. I saw Peter though," the vampire's eyes clouded with frustration at the human boy's name. "He said that she was still pretty upset."

"Oh," Ari still stayed out of her reach. He was certain that Rosie could move faster than him. He might be able to fly, but it would take moments to change and Rosie could be on him in less than a second.

"You did the right thing," Rosie told him. Ari wondered. Was it the right thing? Was it right for him to leave Gracie in that cell and go after Harri? Was it right for him to put Gracie in the cell in the first place? Did he do the right thing in not letting Gracie go and devour her soulmate and Harri?

_I'm not so sure_, the snide voice in his head said. The voice that was being overridden by the wave of thoughts from _his_ soulmate. Ari blinked, he couldn't focus. A panicky scream-thought entered his mind. What was wrong? What was happening to her? The concern for Harri poured into him like a surging waterfall. He had no idea what was happening; only that something was.

"Ari?" Rosie's voice broke through his trance, "Are you okay?"

Ari shook his head, now foolishness washed through him. Not his own, but hers, it was only a spider. "Yeah," Ari paused. Rosie had step nearer to him in concern. Ari stepped back, "Yeah I'm fine. Look I don't want to fight you."

Rosie shook her head exasperated. "I don't want to fight you either," Rosie sighed. "I don't see why you can't go back. You didn't kill her, you didn't break any of the rules."

"I can't face her," Ari answered honestly. He could never look Gracie in the eye and feel like he hadn't failed her. He would have done anything for her, but he couldn't do the one thing that called out for him to do. Ari Lindsay could not kill Harriet Miller. She was his soulmate. Ari knew now why Gracie had worked so hard to have a relationship with Joseph. No one could live with this connection without being emotionally close.

"I think you would be more able to face her now than before," Rosie couldn't understand her colleague's resistance.

_Oh, but you don't know._ Ari wanted to tell Rosie, tell her why he was unable to face Gracie. Unable to look into her warm grey eyes and not feel divided; the thoughts of Gracie warred against the link, slashing against it, trying desperately to tear it down. Ari knew they wouldn't succeed. The Old Powers had determined this.

"I failed her Rosie."

Rosie's eyes widened, their beauty beyond words. The wanting to tell him that he was wrong made the sparkle. "You didn't fail any one. If you had of killed Harri you'd have failed her, and most of all you would have failed yourself."

"You don't get it Rosie, I can't go back. I have to leave this place," the further he was from Harri and Gracie the easier it would be. He would start a new life for the second time in his life. He wouldn't be a vengeful child anymore, or a love stricken teenager; Ari would become something else in his new life. Something that he wouldn't have to run from, something that wouldn't have to do unspeakable acts to gain peace inside him.

"You're right," Rosie sounded angry, she let her voice tear at him, "I don't get it."

Ari wanted to roll his eyes at her. He couldn't just leave; to turn his back on her would be a good as committing suicide. She would be able to jump him by at least his third step. Ari sighed, "Please, don't force me to go back."

"If I don't some one else will find you. I don't really thing you want Jensen or Halleday on your arse."

"Thought you said you didn't know who was sent to find me," Ari was confused. He recognised the agents' names. She was right he didn't want Jensen trying to find him. The man was ruthless in carrying out missions.

"I don't. I'm guessing, I know what those guys are like, and I know what Boss is like. She didn't like losing you," Rosie shrugged, some ease had returned to the conversation.

"I'm not lost, I know exactly where I am. Hiding is not being lost," Ari wanted to glare at his ex-boss, but seeing as she was not there he settled for his ex-partner.

Rosie glared back, silvery determination glinting in her eyes. Her hair shimmered in the streetlight. Ari knew she was going to try and take him in.

"I'm not a hostile Rosie."

"No," Rosie conceded, "but you could be."

Ari watched her carefully. Her face was deadly serious and her body had moved into stance Ari recognised from fighting beside her. Not against her. "Rosie just let me leave. I don't want to go back, I can't look Gracie in the eyes and tell her what I was going to do. I can't look her into her eyes and not feel like I betrayed her."

Rosie almost snorted at his passionate outburst. "Why not?"

Ari sighed, he couldn't tell her. Oh because I found out that Harriet Miller is my soulmate, but I still love Gracie. Yeah, Ari could see that going down well. _I'm still in love with a girl I can't have._ Realisation hit him like a brick wall. Except brick walls don't normally move that fast. "There are just some things she can't find out. Some things that are better left alone."

Rosie's eyes narrowed, and Ari held her glare. He was not going to surrender. "Look this is what I know: You are in love with Gracie Bismarck. She is very angry with Joseph Hannah and Harri Miller. You looked after her this afternoon, and made sure she would not do anything that she would regret at a later date. You left with the intention of committing her revenge for her and not coming back. Ever. Now you are here, at your uncle's warehouse," Rosie paused in her explanation, "Here's what I guess and why: I can't see any blood, nor smell death on you. So I'm guessing you didn't kill Harri. I can sense frustration and confusion on you. I'm guessing something completely unexpected happened when you went after Harri."

Ari still held her gaze. Well what she had said was true. Something completely unexpected had happened when he went after Harri, but would she guess what. Ari wanted to close his eyes and collapse. Then maybe he would get some peace, some peace from the vampire in front of him and the human girl invading his mind.

"Am I right?"

"Yes," Ari answered truthfully, hoping that it would make her go away. He knew that it wouldn't but he could help but lie to himself.

Concern washed the shadowed face, and Ari wondered how much Rosie had changed from the days when stoicism had been her life. "What happened?"

"Nothing," the pointless lie was a reflex, but he did not to want to tell her. The more people that knew about his link with Harri the harder it would be to ignore.

"Bullshit," the response was reflex too. Rosie knew when Ari was lying, and he had openly admitted that something had happened a few seconds ago.

"Maybe," Ari didn't give an inch, "Please Rosie, let me go. I don't want to fight you."

Rosie looked back at the situation. She didn't want to fight him either but she didn't think she had a choice. He was termed as 'a potentially dangerous threat.' CD policy said as an agent she had to attempt to take in a hostile regardless if they were on the case. "Then come with me."

Ari wanted to yell, but he knew that wouldn't change things. They were back at square one. She would attempt to take him back, and he knew he wouldn't go willingly. He remembered how Gracie had fought him earlier that day. She had scratched at him, trying to knee him in the groin, but he had won. Succeeding in taking her back to the CD centre. Ari knew that he would not win his fight against Rosie anywhere as easily. He has witnessed her fights and knew that she knew exactly how to disarm him.

Rosie's probing eyes didn't leave him. Ari watched her just as carefully; he didn't want to be unaware of her movements. To be taken by surprised would be more embarrassing than either of them could comprehend.

Ari noticed Rosie's twitching muscles, but that didn't mean anything. It could just be a feint. Design to lure him in making the wrong defence; still Ari didn't want to be the first to strike. Rosie was a friend.

Neither of them made an attack, the blood too close between them. "I can't do this," the admission of weakness came from Rosie. She knew her duty. She knew that she was bound to take him in, take him back to the place and organisation he had abandoned. Abandoned because his self-pride had been injured. "Even if you had failed, she would forgive you."

Ari was surprised at the vampire's concession. He didn't think she would give in, but then it could all be a ploy. A ploy to get him off balance, "There's nothing to forgive." That was the truth. How could Gracie forgive him for having a soulmate? He couldn't forgive her for having Hannah as the other part of her soul, because she hadn't done anything wrong. Gracie didn't go out of her way to get an ungrateful vampire as a soulmate and he hadn't gone to great pains to be Harriet Miller's soulmate either, although now he was suffering great pain.

Confusion clouded Rosie's eyes, she didn't understand. What was making Ari so stubborn?

"I can't let you go either," and with that Rosie did the only thing she could do. A wave of glittery-power hit Ari's mind. The knowledge that rebounded back at Rosie made everything clearer but by then Ari was flat. His eyelids drooping over his vibrant golden orbs.

* * *

Joseph let the garbled message of the machine warble into his ears. He waited for the single tone to beep and then promptly hung up. What could he do? Leave a message on the man's answering machine: "Hi, My Joseph Hannah, and I need help. My soulmate dumped me."

No, Joseph glared at the phone in the darkness. He had no idea what he had planned to say to the man who Boss had recommended, but it definitely wasn't that. Joseph stared again at the scrap of paper Harri had given him. Her scrawled handwriting evoked the memory of her writing it down with bursting enthusiasm. It was bright memory in the darkness, because he had felt whole again. Joseph had never felt like part of him was missing. Now, when he knew who Gracie was, he did. He could feel his emptiness clawing at him, a wildcat that did not like being kept in a cage. An emptiness that was trying to reach completeness, and it knew how. Joseph supposed he should do the right thing. Call back and this time leave a message, pleading for the help he knew he needed. The help that he knew they needed. Joseph wanted to shed a bitter laugh at the thought that he and Gracie needed couples counselling, but it was true. He and Gracie needed help.

The phone still sat there, glistening in its whiteness. It was distracting him. "_It's not that I don't want you. I do want you. I just don't want to cry anymore." _Gracie's words echoed in his mind. He didn't want to make her cry anymore, but he had spent his life inspiring fear. It wasn't just something he could stop. Tears were his forte, as he had gotten older he knew all the different tears he could cause, and the exact actions that would set those tears in motion. Oh, he would admit that sometimes he had the intent to make Gracie cry. Was it wrong to internally torture the girl you loved? Joseph knew others would think so, but what Gracie had said was true. Ignorance _was_ bliss. He had been ignorant in his life before Gracie and he had experienced the happiness it had caused. He had been trying to regain that bliss, but this time he had knowledge and it was _that_, which was the cause of his pain.

Joseph dialled, and the phone rang.

* * *

The glistening pane of glass revealed an image she did not like very much. Ari's view on her keep barging into her thoughts and she wanted to smash the mirror before her into a thousand shards. The silvery surface showed her hazel eyes and long brown waves in a new light. Harri has always thought she was attractive, beautiful even. Now, she couldn't see it, her reflection had been distorted by the unsavoury thoughts that Ari had bulleted into her mind.

She could feel herself changing, wanting to change, just so she could be looked upon by Ari in something that wasn't revulsion. Oh she knew their agreement. They were going to ignore it. They were going to _ignore _the thing that was trying it's hardest to tie them together for eternity; maybe she could change by then. Harri doubted it was possible, or was that Ari's doubt? The knowledge of what Ari was also scared her. Seeing his memories of shifting did nothing to remove the knowledge that there were other beings besides humans out there. His memories reinforced the words that had been forced through his lips. There was such thing as vampires, shapeshifters and witches, and her soulmate was one of them.

Harri wanted to vanish into oblivion, nothing like that could be real. The images of Ari's past came hurtling at her every time she tried to deny it. And if Ari was a shapeshifter, that would mean that Joseph was a vampire. That thought did not comfort her, did that mean Gracie knew what he was, or was she part of this 'secret society,' too? Harri did not know whom to trust. It would be so easy to dismiss it all, becoming paranoid was not on her list of things to do.

The challenging gaze of Joseph flickered in her memory, and she knew that she had been playing another one of her games. Joseph Hannah was just a boy to be amused by; she didn't harbour any deep and meaningful emotions for the boy. She was just enjoying the challenge. The challenge of seducing her friend's boyfriend, but then Ari's words floated back to her, as if they were from an aeon ago. _"…Joseph Hannah's a vampire, and he fed from you."_ So she was just a part of another game, a game where she was the prey not the hunter. The two games were being played parallel to each other, each thinking that they were the predator. Harri didn't like that thought. No, she didn't like that at all, considering herself weak. That was a needle to her helium balloon-like ego. It was rising higher and now it would burst.

Harri stared at her reflection again. She could not see the confidence that she had once drenched herself in. Eight hairy legs crawled over her image, and Harri backed away. A scream escaping from her lips, she knew it was just a spider, but it was a big black hairy spider. The arachnoid scuttled across the smooth surface and Harri felt like she could breath again.

A wave of stupidity washed her and she knew that a spider should be the least of her fears, after all, she now knew vampires, shapeshifters and witches were real.

Everything seemed scarier. She supposed it was like thinking the world was flat, only to sail off the end of the world to find out that it was round. The nightworld was round, the nightworld existed and it added a new dimension to…well, everything. Harri tried to smile, and found that it was empty. She was too drained, too painfully aware that she had lost a chance of true happiness.

A firm knock rapped her door, startling her. She got up and opened her door; half hoping that Ari was back, but knowing full well it wasn't him. Sally Miller stood at the door, the cordless phone in hand. "It's for you," the twelve year old handed her the phone. Harri didn't even offer her thanks.

"Hello?" Harri put the telecommunications instrument to her ear.

"Hi," the sensual voice greeted on the other end. Harri controlled the urge to thrust the phone away from her. Joseph Hannah was a vampire. A vampire…

"Hey," she tried to put a false smile in her voice but had a feeling she wasn't succeeding.

"When can I see you again?" Harri was startled at the question, a blankness overtook her, and suddenly she felt light hearted, like all the thoughts that had been pouring through her mind had ceased.

"I don't know," Harri said playfully, amazed that she was able to make herself sound like she meant it. Quickly the memory of what she had said cut into her mind. She was trying to prove to Ari she was not as horrible as he thought she was. This was not helping. "Have you talked to Gracie yet?"

She didn't want to hear the response, Harri just wanted to go to bed, and maybe she would believe the delusion that tonight had been a dream. "Yeah," Joseph's voice came through to her.

Oh, "And?" Harri was sure she didn't want to know. Nothing in his voice betrayed what he was feeling and that made Harri angry. A second thought came to Harri. What if he had killed Gracie? After all he was a vampire.

"It's over," the words were flat and emotionless. Harri couldn't play this game anymore. Ari kept on appearing in her mind. If Joseph and Gracie were over that meant Ari and Gracie could be together. The pain of that thought hurt, and Harri didn't know why. She knew the soulmate link was responsible for that pain, but she didn't understand it. How could two people be linked for eternity, that was just plain irrational.

"I'm sorry," Harri was shocked at those words. Yes they had come out of her mouth, but she didn't know if she had meant them. She knew that before this evening those words would have meant bliss for her, but now… now there was only uncertainty.

Joseph didn't say anything. The silence unnerved her, and she wanted to hang up. Hang up and make sure she didn't do anything stupid.

"Look, do you want to get together on Sunday?" Joseph's voice made the invitation seem trivial, but Harri knew she didn't want to be hunted again. The thought of being prey made her shudder.

Harri didn't know what to say; she knew she should say no. After all wasn't that what she had promised herself she would do. She would prove to Ari that she was capable of being a decent person, and that's what a decent person would do wasn't it?


	12. Chapter XII: Miss You Love

TITLE: Losing Grace

DISCLAIMER: Nightworld concepts belong to LJ Smith. Characters belong to me…ask if in the unlikely event that any take your fancy and you want to use them. SUMMARY: "…Joseph would never use her like he had used other girls. He had never fed from her and never would unless she let him. Harri's name entered her mind unbidden; Harri was with her soulmate right now. Harri who's innocent smile made Gracie want to slash the girl's throat with a nice sharp and pointy kitchen knife…." 

Gracie Bismarck always knew that her relationship with her soulmate Joseph Hannah wouldn't be easy, but she never expected so many humans to get in her way.

WARNING: As you may have noticed from Chapter VI I like to use all of my English vocabulary…unfortunately this means that some words classified as 'swear,' words are used, simply because I'm not a saint and don't have the literary skill to imply that a character has used these words without actually stating what they are…sorry if this offends anyone.

Miss You Love is by Silverchair…and happens to be Joseph Hannah's theme song.

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Terriah: Thanks heaps for the review.

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CHAPTER XII

Gracie thought about her stepbrother's weird behaviour. Didn't he know how much he was supporting her by staying at the centre? He had just glared at her before. Peter Haywood was normally very easy-going, and she wanted to know what had happened. Besides it would keep her mind off of _him_. Oh she knew that she was being slightly selfish, but she was doing it in a caring way, besides Phyllis would be distraught if anything happened to her son.

Pete had been asking questions about Ari and Rosie, maybe he didn't trust them…

Gracie wanted to pace, but she thought about the two bodyguards that were assigned to her. Oh, they were sure to say something to Boss Cedars and back into the padded cell she would go. Gracie thought bitterly of the elder vampiric woman.

Peter still filled her mind; maybe she could tell him to go home…no she didn't think that was a good idea.

She sighed; all she wanted was peace and the CD centre was not the place where peace thrived. It always had the sense of combat. Whenever she was here, it felt like a place that was on the brink of violence. She supposed it was, after all, over a hundred agents were quartered in the complex, and it was more like an army barracks than a place she would ever seek refuge.

Gracie closed her eyes. There were a million things she could do…homework, practise some spells, watch television. The list when on but once again her stubborn soulmate filled her mind.

She knew that it was confusing. She was confused. She did love him. His cool blue eyes filled her mind and she wanted to cry because of what she had seen in them. Gracie swallowed, shaking her head trying to banish the thoughts that threatened to dissolve her resolve.

Her mind fled back to this morning when she couldn't feel him anymore, when the link had mysteriously disappeared and when she had found herself in her father's car with the purpose of finding him and hurting him. She had hurt him, his anguish when she told him it was over was proof enough of that, but it didn't make her happy. Gracie closed her eyes, begging herself to forget about these things.

Joseph had said that he did not block the link, but then what was it that had caused it. What had caused the soulmate link between them to be suspended for a few minutes?

No possibility that Gracie could think of sounded plausible. Circle Daybreak would know if anything major had occurred within the nightworld. If a massive amount of magick had been used Circle Daybreak would know. Gracie knew that if someone or something used that amount of magick that there would be repercussions that could very well affect soulmate links. Still, it was highly unlikely that something like that could occur.

Gracie glanced at the clock; the hour hand seemed to be moving so slowly. Gracie got up, no longer content with sitting around like a slug. She knew she needed to do something…anything. She pondered going to the CD centre's library. She knew that CD had done tonnes of research on the soulmate principle but she doubted that anything important or helpful would be in her local centres meagre library. The books she wanted to look at would probably be in Las Vegas and that was a world away.

Gracie sighed, deciding to try, after all it beat sitting in a rec room all alone feeling sorry for herself.

* * *

Joseph wandered through the park. He was amazed at all the people walking their dogs after dark. The sun had set an hour ago, and the darkness of the night had fully descended. He felt the coolness of the night wash over him, but he didn't feel uncomfortable. He smiled sadly, watching a girl and her puppy jog around the circuit. The blonde flowing hair of the girl was tied up in a ponytail, and the girl looked to be about nineteen. She could have been older or younger, but Joseph didn't really care. She was perfect for her purpose.

Absently he wondered why a girl would be out alone at night, but it wasn't late so he supposed it wasn't too odd. But still, nighttime had never been a particularly safe time for young woman to be out.

Silently he followed her, his broad steps keeping up with her. He wasn't really dressed that well for jogging but that didn't matter. They passed and alcove of gums, and Joseph smiled. Not too far now.

The girl looked over her shoulder. She had noticed her unwanted stalker. Joseph winked at her, before speeding up and grabbing her by the waist. The girl struggled, but Joseph knew that she would be no match for his vampiric strength. A brick wall fence sheltered the brick wall of the public toilet block, and Joseph held the girl up beside that. Pressing his body against hers, positioning himself so she couldn't move. The girl's puppy yipped and barked at him but Joseph silenced it with a mental command, and the dog was swiftly sent to sleep. A hand was clamped against the girl's mouth. The only sounds she emitted were muted and garbled screams, not loud enough for anyone to hear.

"Shh," Joseph whispered, gracing her with a fully fanged smile.

The girl continued to violently struggle. "It won't hurt, I promise." Joseph leant into the girls neck and moisten the spot of skin above the jugular. Goosebumps spread across the girls skin, and Joseph sunk his teeth into the girl's soft warm flesh and drank.

The crimson liquid filled his mouth, and he couldn't remember a time when blood tasted so good. The girl's mind flared up beside his and he shielded it, not prying into the mind that he had so carefully hunted. He had had enough of mind-to-mind contact. The girl when limp in his arms and he removed the hand that had covered her mouth. He licked the piece of skin again, his saliva healing the two teeth marks that marred the creamy skin of the girl's neck. Saltiness filled his taste buds and he let the girl slump by the wall and placed the sleeping pup beside her. He sent a thought out to her, and erased the memory of what had happened.

Joseph walked away. He hadn't done that in three months. He hadn't hunted since he had found Gracie. Gracie was right. He could have his old life back. He could hunt and he could do all the things he had once done. The plans with Harri next Sunday were proof of that. Still he didn't feel happy. He felt alone, and the buzzing was still there, that damned link. It was reproaching him, but he knew that Gracie wasn't the one doing it. It was himself.

He laughed bitterly. He was reproaching himself because of the stupid soulmate connection.

He walked to his car. The black beast waited for him. He sped off. Not quite believing what he had done. The radio warbled out a song he had not heard in years.

_Millionaire say  
Got a big shot deal  
And thrown it all away but  
But I'm not too sure how I'm supposed to feel  
Or what I'm supposed to say but_

The girl's blood…it had tasted so pure. It was like he was learning how to breath again. The way it had flowed so gently into his mouth and slid down his throat. It was warm, and full of promise. Promises of power, promises of fear,and promises of life.

_I'm not, not sure  
Not too sure how it feels  
To handle every day  
And I miss you love_

Promises broken. Promises like his promises to Gracie. Joseph sighed; this was not good. He knew that deep inside of him he wanted to be with Gracie. Needed to share his life with her, but she had rejected him, refused him. He knew that he wasn't perfect would never _be_ perfect. What had she said? _'You can go back to your old world…'_ he was back in his old world. He had stepped back into the world tonight with that blonde girl's blood.

_Make room for the prey  
Cause I'm coming in  
With what I wanna say but  
It's gonna hurt  
And I love the pain  
A breeding ground for hate but_

He had stood at the threshold when he rang Harri the other night to organise something for tomorrow. Stood at threshold and now he had walked through, and he would continue to walk though. He wanted to turn around, Joseph knew he needed to turn around, but it was too late. He didn't know how he could turn around.

_I'm not, not sure  
Not too sure how it feels  
To handle every day  
Like the one that just passed  
In the crowds of all the people_

He couldn't forget what he had been brought up with…or not brought up with as the case had been. His mother was rarely there, a nymph that fluttered in and out of the house. His father…a tough hand that punished with out distinction. Then one day there was no mother, only a father. A father who taught him how to lure young girls in to his false arms, young girls that nobody would miss. The types of girls that nobody but a few seemed to care about, so trusting, so insecure, and with such deliciously tantalising crimson blood. The girls who courted the dangerous nightlife, and dwelled in the shadows of respectable society, girls that brought it all on themselves. That was what his father had taught him.

_Remember today  
I've no respect for you  
And I miss you love_

Then there had been no father; mother and father alike had abandoned him. They had taught him how he should survive and left. He continued to go to school, the meddling humans around him saw to that, and no nightworlder sought to intervene. He turned up in the morning only to leave soon after; it was a wonder that the school authorities weren't aware of his home situation. Then there was Gracie. Grace Bismarck. A witch who had friends both nightworld and human, even had a human stepbrother. Oh he had looked down on her contemptuously. So much so he began to bully her. After all she was a stupid daybreaker witch, a traitor to the nightworld. Then one day it all changed.

_I love the way you love  
But I hate the way  
I'm supposed to love you back  
It's just a fad  
Part of the... teen... teenage angst brigade and_

He turned the corner. It all changed and he was launched into a grey slate world. A world he couldn't escape and only half-heartedly tried to. The stupid daybreaker witch was his soulmate. He should have been relieved on some level. She was a nightworlder, a witch with mahogany hair and cool grey eyes. Grey eyes that he had made cry too many times. She had been surprised, scared and overall happy that she had found him. She didn't seem to care about who he was, and she was no longer afraid of him. She accepted him, but then she found out about his past.

_I'm not, not sure  
Not too sure how it feels  
To handle every day  
Like the one that just passed  
In the crowds of all the people_

The house was dimly lit; he stared at it for a while. The curtains had been pulled closed. He knew she wasn't there. She was still at the CD centre; he couldn't feel her presence inside the house. She found out about his childhood, and that was when the pity began. Pity for what he was, he was a creature of the night that had never known even the briefest flash of true happiness. And she pitied that. She wanted to show him that he could be happy; he could be good, that he no longer had to live in a world where fear was power.

_Remember today  
I've no respect for you  
And I miss you love_

Wants where much easier to imagine than to do…the blood from the girl had refreshed him, but it wasn't what he truly wanted. He couldn't have what he wanted. It wasn't possible. Joseph sighed, closing his eyes and resting his head against the steering wheel. He loved her, yes. But her hated her at the same time. Hated her so much for being pure, being perfect. He hated her for knowing what good was. He hated her for being his soulmate.

_I love the way you love  
But I hate the way  
I'm supposed to love you back_

* * *

Ari Lindsay felt warm, which he concluded wasn't at all strange seeing as he was wrapped up in a big grey itchy blanket. What was strange though was that he couldn't remember how he ended up wrapped in a big grey itchy blanket. He remembered Rosie arguing with him and then nothing. Ari tried to move, not liking the memories of last night. He soon realised he couldn't, his arms were beside him, and the big grey itchy blanket was literally wrapped around him so he was bound. He resembled a sausage roll, except he was Ari, not a sausage.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Rosie's voice penetrated the air, and Ari would have jumped had he been standing up.

"Tell you what Rosie? Where the fuck are we?" He had no clue as to where they were located.

"Tell me that you'd found your soulmate? I think as your partner I have a right to know. I mean that would have explained to me why you didn't want to go back." Rosie's anger threaded itself through her voice like a cold and deadly serpent.

"It's not something I want people to know," Ari's voice was cold; he did not like being the vulnerable one in this situation.

"I'm not just anyone Ari," Rosie appeared in his sight, her unearthly presence intimidated him more, Ari had a sudden pang of empathy for all the hostiles they had taken in before. "Goddess, why is every one turning against me?" the last words were whispers of frustration.

"Look Rosie, you're my ex-partner. Telling you wouldn't change anything. I'm still leaving. I can't face Gracie," his golden eyes burned. He was drained, and he wanted to vanish. Disappear and never return, but Rosie wasn't going to let that happen, was she?

"Do you think that's what Gracie wants?" Rosie couldn't believe this. She had always thought Ari was better than this…stronger than this.

Ari continued to glare. He wanted to be free of this, to be free of her, to be free of all them, Rosie, Gracie, and most of all Harriet Miller. "I tried giving her what she wanted Rosie, and you know what I got. I got a selfish, callous soulmate in return. I got Harriet Miller as my soulmate. I try to do something for the girl I love, and I get a soulmate."

Rosie shook her head sullenly at the boy she once considered her closest friend. His rambling words hurt her. She couldn't take it anymore. First Pete was accusing her of being elitist, now Ari wanted to abandon everything he worked for. He wanted to abandon his friends, his work; he wanted to abandon Gracie, and all because the fates had thrown him a curveball. "Fuck you Ari." She was half disgusted with him. "I understand why you don't want people to know that Harriet Miller is your soulmate, but you can't just up and leave."

Ari was startled at her words. "It's not like me leaving is a new development or anything. Rosie I was going to leave anyway. If I had succeeded in killing Harri, I wouldn't be allowed back. You know that. CD doesn't allow us to kill humans, but Harri is not human. She's an empty shell, and I'm connected to her."

Rosie was so tempted to slap Ari across the face. She had had way too much for this twenty-four hours. "You don't deserve her."

Ari closed his eyes, wishing to be unconscious again. That way he could get some peace.

Rosie stared at him. He really wasn't the shapeshifter she thought he was. "If you did you wouldn't be afraid to tell her how you feel," He was a coward. He couldn't even face Gracie and tell her how he felt. He would always hide behind the smokescreen of friendship, and now he had two barriers in the way. He could use Joseph as an excuse all he wanted, and now he had his own. He had Harriet Miller as another excuse of why he would never face up to his feelings. "She would understand. God, do you think she likes having that ungrateful bastard Hannah for a soulmate?" Rosie shook her head. She was truly disgusted with the 'shifter before her. They had been friends, partners, worked together for a common purpose. She had seen him be brave, seen him fight for a cause he believed in, but that Ari was not the Ari that was before her now. She turned on her heel and left.

Ari swore. He was still wrapped up in the big grey itchy blanket.

* * *

Harri couldn't sleep. Guilt had decided to make its presence known in her psyche. She had said yes. Of all the stupid things to do, she had said "yeah sure."

"Yeah, sure. My ass," she muttered in to her pillow. She didn't know why guilt, if that was what it was called had made itself known. She had lived a life in absence of it. Oh, there were other emotions that had filled her life akin to guilt, but guilt had never catapulted in to her heart and mind until now.

Harri was going to see Joseph on Sunday. As soon as he had hung up, Harri knew she had done the wrong thing. He and Gracie weren't together anymore, but something was making her feel like she was cheating on Ari. Harri shook her head. No, they were ignoring it. Ignoring that blasted thing that flitted between them…

She didn't understand it. Surely if there was such a thing, then she would have heard of it. It couldn't just be confined to nightworlders. After all it had happened to her, and she was human. Ari's burning golden eyes made their way into her mind. They were so demanding and they held so much hate in them. But only when they looked at her, when they looked on Gracie there was so much longing and love in them. Harri shook her head. She was being stupid. She didn't care about Ari. She hardly knew him.

_I should tell him I changed my mind,_ she thought. Yes, that was the solution. Tell Joseph that she couldn't meet him.

Harri turned again, twisting her bedding around her. She hadn't felt right since Ari had left. Even then she had felt…wrong. She had never felt so imperfect in her life. Harri breathed in deeply, willing herself to sleep. Sleep was the closest thing to oblivion she was going to get.


	13. Chapter XIII: Salt

TITLE: Losing Grace formerly titled Green

DISCLAIMER: Nightworld concepts belong to LJ Smith. Characters belong to me…ask if in the unlikely event that any take your fancy and you want to use them. SUMMARY: "…Joseph would never use her like he had used other girls. He had never fed from her and never would unless she let him. Harri's name entered her mind unbidden; Harri was with her soulmate right now. Harri who's innocent smile made Gracie want to slash the girl's throat with a nice sharp and pointy kitchen knife…." 

Gracie Bismarck always knew that her relationship with her soulmate Joseph Hannah wouldn't be easy, but she never expected so many humans to get in her way.

WARNING: As you may have noticed from Chapter VI I like to use all of my English vocabulary…unfortunately this means that some words classified as 'swear,' words are used, simply because I'm not a saint and don't have the literary skill to imply that a character has used these words without actually stating what they are…sorry if this offends anyone.

* * *

Old Penguin: Sorry for the long wait between updates….yr 12 has this annoying habit of causing havoc in both my real life and my well….internet life….Thank you muchly for the humongous review. There is kind of some action in this bit….but it's still introspective-ish…I'm glad Harri's relatable….that's kind of what I intended with all of my characters…I didn't want them to be to unrealistic…but they are in and unrealistic situation so I'm sure sometimes I fail. Hopefully I'm aiming for this to be finished in fifteen chapters.

I'm scared that it is dragging on and all of my longer fics tend to end (or don't end) in a disappointing way, but hopefully it will be a brilliant ending as you said. Oh and about the soulmate link between Gracie and Joseph it is there, but they're not together because, well Joseph's been an arse to her really…

Terriah: I finally go 'round to it and updated! Thank you for reviewing over and over again…it makes me so glad to get them and I'm glad you like the fic so far

Pinkhaze: Harri is what she is. I know she's well…not a nice character, but there has to be a villain to be a hero. Thanks for your review.

* * *

CHAPTER XIII

Gracie was back in the library. She'd been briefed by Boss, and was allowed to go home. Gracie had to resist the impulse to roll her eyes at every word the woman had said.

The books hadn't been very useful last night. She had searched the leather volumes for an answer to the phenomenon but had come up blank. Half of the books in here weren't in English anyway. Gracie really, really wanted to give up, but to give up would mean to remain answerless and Gracie wanted an answer more.

Gracie continued to search, the book she had opened looked like English, but she couldn't be sure after all the words seem to be in English but there were apostrophes in strange places. Gracie sighed this was not working out. She knew she wasn't a top researcher and the librarian had looked her up and down when she had wandered into the library late the previous night. She thought about asking her father. Jake Bismarck would be able to at least read these things.

She glanced at the librarian; the bookish looking man was watching her. Probably scared that she would damage his precious books. "Excuse me,"

The librarian looked up. "Yes?"

"Do you have anything in English about the affects of powerful magick?" Gracie asked. The librarian's eyes narrowed.

"What do you need it for?" The question was asked suspiciously. Gracie wondered if she still had 'potential threat,' tattooed on her forehead.

"Personal interest," Gracie replied guardedly.

The librarian did not seem impressed by that answer and Rosie Willow's rushed entrance annoyed him further.

"Gracie," Rosie called. Gracie began to smile, but it shattered as she saw the expression on Rosie's face.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Um, there's something I need to show you." Rosie's ethereal presence overpowered the librarian's disapproval.

Gracie looked at the vampire girl quizzically. "What?" Gracie was curious, what had this girl so rushed?

Rosie shook her head indicating she had no time to explain. "C'mon," she beckoned her to leave.

Gracie closed the open book, and placed it on the librarian's desk. The bookish man rolled his eyes, "thanks."

Gracie left trying to catch to Rosie's speed. "Rosie? What is it?"

Rosie paused for a minute, before saying one word. "Ari."

* * *

Harri wandered the mall aimlessly. She did have an aim, to find something to wear to Maria Stapleton's birthday, but she felt aimless. As if she had been all set and prepared for something, only to be let down and see it combust.

Crying had never really helped her, but she felt like crying now. She had made up her mind, and she had rung him that morning, but no answer. The ring tone had filled her ears before there was monotone beeping. Oh, she didn't really understand what was going on. It was too confusing, and overwhelming. Every time she thought she had everything under strict control, something would be set free, like a thread being pulled loose, and destroying a beloved garment.

That was what annoyed her the most. The fact that saying yes to Joseph had felt right, and like she was back in control of her world and not in the whirlpool that Ari Lindsay had thrown her into. It was all very well to watch television shows like _Buffy, Angel_ and _Charmed,_ but the reality of it was way too much.

She turned into a shop; a brightly coloured shirt had caught the corner of her eye. It was in a flowing cut and she thought it would go well with her dark jeans. The examined the fabric closely. Half hoping she would feel content again, but she doubted it. It was silky as she ran her fingers over it, the smooth texture felt like liquid over her fingertips.

"Hey," the soft voice startled her from behind and she almost knocked the coat hangers off the stand.

Azure eyes bore into hers and for once Harri didn't feel like drowning in those dark depths. They didn't burn like the molten gold ones that she sought an unreasonable approval from.

"Hey," she replied, giving what she knew to be a false smile.

"What you doing?" Joseph inquired casually. The smoothness of his words unsettled Harri and Ari's words flickered back into her memory.

"Trying to find something to wear to Ria's," she pushed her disquieting thoughts down into a dark place where she could deal with them later. Now was for telling him she couldn't make it…

He moved passed her to examine the shirt she was previously looking at. "That would look nice on you," Harri could see it was an empty comment. Joseph wasn't entirely there she was sure of it. There was something about the way he seemed to be torn into another space; another world that she would never be a part of. Another world she never wanted to be a part of.

"I was thinking about trying it on," she added vacuously, internally kicking herself for not having the guts to bring up their plans. The small talk was becoming painful, and she still felt drained.

"What is it?" Joseph asked. Harri was shocked to see his oceanic eyes studying her intently. The blueness of them made her uneasy, and they looked like they could pierce her very soul.

"Hmm?" she asked confused, "it's a shirt?" no he knows it a shirt. "What do you mean?" The words came out like a rushed waterfall. Tumbling into each other and she was sure they weren't coherent.

Amazingly he understood her confused, embarrassed slurred words. "You seem kind of… I dunno, tense? What's bothering you?"

His concern could have melted her, and a few days ago. She was sure it would have. Except now, every thing had somehow changed, and the world she lived in before wasn't the world she was breathing air in now.

"Oh, I just remembered," she faked with seventeen years worth of skill. "I have to look after Sally this arvo," she rested a hand on Joseph's forearm, "I'm sorry. I totally forgot about it, until Mum reminded me this morning. I tried to call you but no one was there."

Joseph looked at her for a few moments. The briefest flash of ice appeared in those sapphire pools, and if Harri hadn't been told that the boy in front of her was a vampire then the flash would have confirmed it. "You're still going to Ria Stapleton's party though."

Damn, Harri cursed inwardly, "It's only for the afternoon, Mum and Dad have got this luncheon thing on, and it finishes at about five I think."

The lies were seamless, and Harri began to wonder if she had imagined the change she had felt herself go through. "Oh," disappointment edged in his soft seductive voice.

"Yeah, sorry, but they've had this thing planned for a while, and I totally forgot," she slapped herself lightly on the forehead. "I'm such an idiot, I'm so sorry."

Joseph have a teensy sad smile, "Nah, don't be," he reassured her. "How 'bout we get a drink now?" A hand was about to slide around her waist when two things happened. An abusive and cursing Peter Haywood started shouting at the vampire beside her, while she pondered Joseph's meaning of the word 'drink.'

* * *

The ceiling was beginning to get intensely boring. Ari had traced every line and panel in the warehouse's ceiling with his burning gold eyes and he had found nothing new since the first time he had examined it…although if he tilted his head to the side her could faintly make out the shape of a bunny rabbit amongst the brown stains.

The footsteps drew him out of his reverie. "He's in here," Rosie voice guided the unknown stranger.

The two pairs of footstep came closer, and one of the walkers was lighter-footed than the other.

"Where the hell did you go Ari?" Gracie's voice swelled with anger. He had been another worry embedded in the back of her mind. The news that he had gone missing had made her uneasy. She was grateful now that he had the foresight and the understanding to prevent the worse mistakes she could have ever made. Oh, Gracie still longed for revenge on the callous human girl who had taken her soulmate away from her, but now she was clear headed and knew what consequences of those actions would be.

Ari stared at her. The golden eyes looked shocked, and he shook his head over and over again.

"This is not happening," he whispered, and Gracie didn't understand.

"What's wrong with him Rosie?"

Rosie bit her lip. Snide comments were bursting to get out. "I think he can explain," her tone was cold, and it sent pinpricks of shivers up Gracie's spine.

Ari twisted his head to the direction Rosie's voice had emanated from. "Why'd you bring her here?"

Rosie wanted to laugh, "you know why." She paused, "I'll leave you alone for a bit."

* * *

Gracie wondered at Rosie's words. The vampire had been so determined to find her. Ari sighed softly, exasperation flowing freely.

"Ari?" Gracie enquired cautiously. "What's going on?" She looked down at his bundled figure. His eyes no longer burned molten gold; they had faded to a sad, solid amber. The angel of vengeance had fallen from heaven. A sad smile laced Ari's lips and Gracie felt nervousness envelope her body.

"Lots of things."

The vague answer did not sooth her concerns. "Why did you leave?" Gracie remembered his adamant protests on her feelings of revenge, and the sad regretful look in his eyes the last time she had seen him. "What did you do?" the notes of her voice were sterner, and several things clicked in her tired and weary brain. "You didn't, did you?

The expression on Ari's face remained unchanged. The cool clean lines of his cheeks betrayed nothing of what he was thinking and "didn't what Gracie? I didn't do a lot of things."

The guarded responses were cutting at her patience. Rosie had dragged her out here for something. "Look, Ari I don't know what Rosie had in mind when she brought me out here. I got the impression that you had something to say to me."

Ari let out a faint laugh, and once again shivers sparkled up and down Gracie's spine. This was too eerie. In the faded light of the warehouse, Ari's mad laughter made her feel uncomfortable. The boy that lay before her wrapped in the grey blanket was not the boy she had known. Ari Linsday had always been there for her whether she wanted him or not. He had looked after her since the first day she had came to the CD centre. He has been there to laugh with, been there to help her, been in her Art classes. He invaded every memory she had for the last six years, a golden shining figure in the background. He had been the figure to stop her yesterday, been the voice of stable and un-bendable reason.

"Goodbye."

The single word made Gracie feel sick. It was an answer, a response to her demands, but it wasn't the response she wanted. "What?"

"Goodbye. Fare thee well. Sayonara. Adios-"

The serenade of goodbyes made her want to slap him. Gracie had no idea what was going on.

"If you don't shut up. I will hurt you." The threat was nothing but she had no patience left. There had been too much going on in her mind and she did not need some mad man rolled up in a grey blanket flinging a thesaurus of words at her, even if they were in other languages.

"That was what I had to say to you. I'm sorry Gracie. I have to leave, now if you will kindly get Rosie for me."

"Why are you leaving?" Gracie couldn't understand. There was nothing she knew of that called for the departure of the boy before her.

"Personal reasons," the words held a deadly poison in them. Gracie could almost feel the predator in him emerging through his voice. Gracie had never wanted to know this side of Ari. She didn't want to know this side of any of her predator friends. She knew that a caged animal was twice as perilous as a wild one, and a tame animal even more so. With a wild animal, you knew they dangerous. It was a given, but with a tamed one, you never knew when they would revert to their natural instincts and claw you to shreds.

"You didn't kill them did you?" the question had to be asked. The thought was too terrible, and she knew that it was half untrue. She could feel the faint tingling presence that told her that her soulmate was perfectly fine.

Ari's eyes narrowed. The burning gold coming back to life, there was something very poisonous in his thoughts, and Gracie would have given the world right then to know what it was. There was definitely something in Ari's mind that was making him irrational.

"No."

The single syllable hung in the air. The word was spoken quietly, but it held a metallic edge to it. An edge that was sharper than any blade that he possessed. Ari looked up at the witch that was searching him with slate-grey eyes. Frustration and concern bled from them and Gracie could feel herself wanting to curl up into a ball and collapse.

"I didn't kill Harriet Miller. I didn't kill your soulmate. I just can't stay around here any more Gracie." The sentences filled the chasm that was widening and Gracie could hear a tiredness in Ari's voice as he spoke. "I can't stay here and be surrounded by people like you, Harri and Joseph."

_What's wrong with me?_ The thought nagged at her persistently and anger welled up in her stomach. "I like you Gracie, okay? I don't have anything against you."

Ari winced. Something inside of him was hurting. Something that he had kept hidden under so many layers was stinging and biting at him. He couldn't say it. He could never say it, and he had always known that. Yeah, he could say it to himself; he could admit it to Rosie, but telling the object of his affections that truth. No. It would cause too much dissent.

"Then why do you want to leave me?" the question was fair, and tension gathered around the words like dust accumulating on a mantelpiece.

"I love you Gracie." There he had said it. The whisper of words fell like a lead sinker in the air, the softness of his voice not hiding the harshness of the truth.

Gracie blinked. The eyelids covering the greyness of her eyes, "you want to leave me because you love me." She processed the new information out loud.

"No. I want to leave you, because you have a soulmate and I love you."

The clarification didn't help.

"Come again?" Gracie felt unsteady; she wished she had been sitting down when he had told her. Her legs felt weak, and her head was spinning. She reached out for something to hold on to.

"You have a soulmate, and I know it's not easy for you. I've had to watch him make you cry, I've seen him hurt you so much, but you still love him. You're still with him and I know that against him, I have no chance," Ari sighed, "I can't stay here anymore Gracie, I need to move on, because being here, being obsessed with you, and loving you isn't going to help me or anyone else."

"I'm not with him anymore." Gracie didn't know why she said it. His admissions had explained so much about his actions. Explained why he was always there in her memories, explained the way he looked at her. "Joseph and I…we broke up."

A salted tear trickled down her cheek. She wiped away the silvery liquid determined not to cry in front of this boy.

Ari glanced up at her, some fire returning to his dull golden eyes. He sobered when he saw the glistening tears on her cheeks. "I'm sorry Gracie. Rosie shouldn't have brought you here."

"No," Gracie said softly, "no, she did the right thing." She backed away from him, to lean against the cool brick wall. She needed something to steady her. She needed to think about what he had told her. "You should have told me you were leaving."

Ari gave her a regretful smile, "I would have, if I didn't think you'd stop me."

Gracie nodded, "I don't think I would have, not in that state anyway." Her grey eyes closed for a moment, she felt so drained. She was too unsteady, too full of torrents of emotion. She hadn't enough sleep, and this emotional downpour wasn't refreshing.

"I couldn't take that chance."

"What makes you think I won't stop you now?" Gracie stared straight at him.

"Well for starters, it's not you stopping me." Ari sighed, "Rosie won't let me go. She'll drag me back to the centre. She would have let me go by now if she was going to." Ari struggled a bit in his binds. "I never meant to hurt you."

Gracie gave him a sad smile. "I never meant to get hurt," the words rung with truth, "by you or anybody else."

"I'm sorry for anything I've done to hurt you."

Gracie smiled. "You should comeback. They'll forgive you, you know that right? I mean you were only gone twenty four hours max."

Ari shook his head, "I can't Gracie. There's nothing to forgive."

"Then there's no reason you shouldn't come back," Gracie's logic was adamant. The golden fires glance down, with something Gracie would only venture to call shame, shame and something else. Something else that she refused to name.

"There's plenty," Ari murmured softly, "Nothing's going to change Gracie, and it's not fair on you or myself."

"Comeback," Gracie began to plead, she knew that she had to keep Ari with Circle Daybreak, he had worked so hard to be a part of them. He had too much of a life there to just abandon it, because of something he felt towards her. "Please."

"So this is why Rosie brought you," Ari smirked as a purely manipulative thought entered his brain. "Emotional blackmail, I thought she didn't do that anymore."

Gracie let out a low growl of frustration. "Ari, please. It won't be the same with out you there."

Ari continued to refuse. "You're going to make me beg aren't you?"

Grey eyes narrowed, and Ari felt a suddenly wave of stupidity flow over him that was all his own; not his nuisance soulmate's. An aura of misty grey power lifted him, as the witch he loved whispered an incantation.

Ari wavered as she focused her power and called for his ex-partner's presence.

The inhuman beauty stepped through the open door, and her sparkling eyes widened as she saw Ari's hovering body.

"We're taking him back," Gracie told Rosie decisively. The vampiric girl nodded, an amused gleam cutting across her features. Ari stared at his captors. This was not happening.

* * *

Peter Haywood could not believe what was happening. That slimy blood-sucking leech…there he was, calmly chatting to that emotionless bitch. Peter wanted to slam a stake into that vampire's poor excuse for a heart right there, right then. He knew he wouldn't stand a chance against that inhuman beast, but that was all part of Joseph Hannah's unwavering arrogance, knowing that no human could win a fight against him.

Peter didn't want to fight. Peter wanted to kill. Wanted to kill them all, all of the filthy leeches. Rosie had said she used to be just like him, just like Joseph Hannah, just like all of the condescending badass vamps that hunted the earth. She was the only vampire he had ever met that possessed even a remote semblance of humanity. The rest, even the good ones, they were all monsters. Heartless, unfeeling, reckless monsters; they had no care for the hearts and souls of others. Joseph Hannah was prime example of that; he had no care for the heart and soul of Gracie. He didn't even give a damn about his own soulmate.

The girl standing seductively beside him was worse. A human. A human with no humanity. A girl whose tongues twisted lies into shape as easily as she breathed, a human who would smile contentedly at a weeping figure trying to mend a shattered soul. Harriet Miller should have been born dead. She should have been born into the nightworld. That was the place creatures who destroyed like her belonged.

Shouts of anger, and hate spewed forth from Peter's lips. Harriet looked up, fear, nervousness and confused moulded her face. Peter didn't notice. He didn't want to notice as Joseph tried to calm him. All he noticed was the way his stepsister's soulmate had a casual arm wrapped around Harriet. All he noticed was the quick deadly movements of Joseph Hannah as he deflected the first blow that Peter had tried to send his way.

Hate, anger, resentment, and loathing feed him. The pain of Joseph's quick movements injected itself into Peter's muscles.

Fury drove him; blow after blow, the cries of a girl did not reach him, as Peter pounded his fist into solid flesh.

Peter breathed, there was presence by his side, a presence that was leaning over him as he lay on the cold tiled floor of the shopping centre. A presence that was non-threatening, a presence that was shouting in his defence. A presence that he despised as much as the violation of nature that had knocked him down. His body was smarting, stinging with the needles of pain, pulsing as the blood rushed and coursed through his veins.

A thwack echoed through the air. Flesh hit flesh, and flesh hit the floor. Screams vibrated and angst danced forcefully amongst the notes. Abuse glittered in the form of unanswerable questions, and tears were shed.

The salt of a girl's tears dripped onto the dust-covered floor, as Peter tried to sit up and face the monsters that had brought him to this point. His head swum, and he crashed back down.


End file.
